Chapter 51 – Relief

After wrapping up at the site, Il-hyeon and Lee Tae-hee disembarked from the transport plane and returned to their lodgings.

The mouse was perched on Il-hyeon’s shoulder, and a shrunken Phoenix was nestled in Lee Tae-hee’s arms.

Il-hyeon had initially been told he would only be there for a week, but the situation had proven worse than expected, and his deployment had been extended.

As he opened the door and stepped inside, he saw Ghost sprawled on the spacious sofa, dozing off.

He hadn’t even changed, still wearing the gear he’d returned in from the field.

“Ugh, no. My mask!”

Ghost’s arm twitched as he mumbled in his sleep.

His face was contorted as if he were having a nightmare.

Il-hyeon shook him awake with one hand.

“What are you dreaming about?”

“Ah, I dozed off again.”

Waking with a start, Ghost sat up and slapped his own cheeks.

“If you’re tired, just go to your room and sleep. Don’t just lie here like this.”

“I’m awake. I’m awake.”

Ghost stretched his arms wide.

He then picked up a white bottle from the table.

He shook two or three tiny pills onto his palm and tossed them into his mouth.

“Ah, can I have one too?”

“Sure.”

Ghost flicked a pill through the air, and Lee Tae-hee caught it in her mouth, grinning.

The pills were stimulants, designed to instantly ward off sleep.

Lately, they had become a staple for the team members.

He’d always thought pills for staying awake were something you’d only need when pulling an all-nighter at the office; he never imagined he’d see them used out here.

Of course, their effects were incomparably stronger than anything available on the market, and they had been rigorously tested to be safe for human consumption with no side effects.

“Seeing you back already, you must have handled it well. A Gate of that type should have been tricky. As expected from the world’s two top prospects. When you two become Team Leaders, be sure to hire me.”

Ghost spoke with a sly grin after glancing at the clock on the wall.

Lee Tae-hee’s face flushed slightly as she gave an awkward laugh.

During his deployment in Europe with A-Team, Il-hyeon had achieved remarkable results, and he was now considered a rising star on par with Lee Tae-hee.

It wasn’t just his rapid growth in skill; reports of the monsters he defeated were being posted on related sites and picked up by the news, making him increasingly well-known to the public.

Of course, Il-hyeon himself hadn’t felt the change, as he’d barely had a moment to go outside.

Unlike the bashful Tae-hee, Il-hyeon had grown accustomed to Ghost’s knack for making people uncomfortable and simply took off his Defensive Coat, hanging it on a rack without a word.

It was covered in dust from the field, and to anyone else, it would look like it needed immediate washing.

But there was no need.

It would only get dirty again in an hour or two at most.

*Thump!*

A small red fox fell from a gap within the coat.

Its appearance was distinctly different from a normal fox, its nine small tails swaying gently behind it.

This was Il-hyeon’s new summon, the fourth to have absorbed Ether.

“Ugh.”

Ignoring the summons that were now scurrying around the house, Il-hyeon took a quick shower and flopped onto the sofa.

Thanks to the stimulant he’d swallowed that morning, he wasn’t sleepy, but his body was thoroughly exhausted.

He was so used to being woken up several times during the night by new Gates that getting a proper night’s sleep had become a foreign concept.

If it weren’t for the enhanced recovery of an Awakened’s body, he would have collapsed from overwork long ago.

“Is the world ending? They said it would quiet down after a week, and now it’s been three.”

Il-hyeon muttered blankly, staring at the ceiling.

“It’s not that bad… but this one is really dragging on. Still, we’re heading back to Korea tomorrow. Things should be a bit more relaxed for us then.”

At Ghost’s words, Il-hyeon nodded.

He had already heard that overseas deployments were tough in many ways.

They were primarily assigned to time-sensitive Gates, making them busier than the teams on standby in Seoul, and now this situation had been piled on top of it all.

“Ah, but seriously, it’s too much that we have the smallest team. Five people for an entire continent in this situation? Does that even make sense? I haven’t even pissed anyone off.”

“Hmm… maybe it just shows how much they trust us.”

“What a shitty kind of trust.”

“Heh heh.”

A soft chuckle escaped Il-hyeon as he lay with his eyes closed.

He somewhat agreed with Ghost; he’d heard that the other deployed teams had around seven to eight members.

Even though the European continent was relatively small, it was true that they were working at a more frantic pace than the other teams.

“Well, it is surprising that Tae-hee came. Her Team Leader in C-Team is super protective of her; I never thought she’d be here for three weeks. Maybe he’s intentionally putting her through some kind of extreme training.”

At his words, Il-hyeon glanced to the side and saw Lee Tae-hee squatting on the floor.

She was playing with the mouse, which was nibbling at her finger as she poked its belly.

‘Well, thanks to this, I’ve absorbed a ton of cores.’

Come to think of it, while he had been incredibly busy lately, the number of cores he obtained had increased proportionally.

If the team had been larger, he wouldn’t have been able to rack up such achievements or absorb so many cores.

Unlike before, he could now comfortably handle monsters from B1-grade Gates.

“Everyone, come here.”

Lee Tae-hee called out to the summons, who were darting around distractedly.

The three small summons immediately scampered over to her.

“Ta-da!”

Lee Tae-hee pulled a core from her pocket.

The summons hopped excitedly at the sight of the squarish core, which glowed with a white light.

“Paw.”

Lee Tae-hee placed a core in front of each of them and spoke.

Three different paws quickly landed on her palm.

Before, they would have snatched and devoured anything placed in front of them, but Il-hyeon had used every spare moment to train them with cores, and they were now capable of self-control.

“Good job.”

Lee Tae-hee handed them each a core and watched with a pleased expression as they happily ate.

Having been bitten by an animal as a child, she had been wary of the unfamiliar summons at first, but now they felt like companions she would be sad to part with.

“You know, I told you I’d give them their cores.”

Watching them, Il-hyeon spoke apologetically.

Once they realized the summons needed cores like food and were absolutely crazy for them, the team members often gave up their own share to feed them.

“We work together. It’s the least I can do.”

Lee Tae-hee replied nonchalantly.

Il-hyeon’s summons were no longer limited to minor roles like buying time or providing support.

Over the past three weeks, they had grown progressively stronger and were now capable of handling certain problems on their own, which made dealing with the increased workload much more manageable.

Just then, the sound of the door opening echoed through the room.

Lee Soo-yeon and Seok Pil-joon, who had been out on a different mission, had returned.

But the first one to dash into the living room was a gray dog.

The wolf, which had been on the mission with them, was now in its smaller form. It spotted the broken core fragments on the floor and began sniffing around frantically.

“Ah, I only managed to grab three from the site…”

Lee Tae-hee wore a troubled expression.

“It’s fine. I got one.”

Seok Pil-joon walked in and tossed a core.

The small wolf leaped acrobatically and caught it in its mouth.

Il-hyeon sat up as Ghost spoke to Lee Soo-yeon.

“Looks like you finished without any trouble. I heard that dangerous blue bastard showed up again.”

“Yeah, it was a close call, but we wrapped it up.”

“That wasn’t a Gate for just two people. I’m worried someone’s going to get seriously hurt at this rate.”

“We can’t help it. We can’t afford to play it safe like we used to.”

They no longer had sufficient manpower or equipment, and every Awakened across the globe was stretched thin.

The days of meticulously planning for every contingency before entering a site were over.

Just as Lee Soo-yeon sat down next to Il-hyeon and was about to lean back, her receiver rang with perfect timing.

-B1-grade Gate generated in eastern Sicily! Fifteen minutes until activation!

“…Let’s go.”

Lee Soo-yeon, who had frozen in a half-reclined position, stood up.

Ghost, whose turn it was, trudged up after her.

“You just got back. I’ll go with Ghost.”

“It’s fine. You just got back too. Get some rest.”

“You two should eat something first.”

Lee Soo-yeon waved off Il-hyeon’s suggestion, and Ghost picked up his sword as he spoke.

Just as the two were about to leave for the mission, the receiver went off again.

-Another B2-grade Gate has appeared in Nice! Nine minutes until activation. We need you to go immediately!

“Hmm… Looks like you’ll have to postpone that meal.”

* * *

*Crackle!*

A half-broken shop sign burst into flames.

The unintended fire illuminated the now-darkened night street.

Broken trees, half-demolished buildings, overturned roads, and bent, extinguished streetlights.

Il-hyeon and Lee Tae-hee were sitting in the middle of this ruin.

“This one was a real pain.”

An entire section of the city was in shambles, but Il-hyeon’s heart felt light.

It was because they had managed to finish without any casualties.

He had secured countless sites, but nothing felt as liberating as when he managed to do so without a single loss of life.

“Oh? It’s snowing.”

“You’re right.”

Lee Tae-hee said, looking up at the sky.

Just as she said, snowflakes began to drift down from above.

“Come to think of it, it’s Christmas soon.”

Though the street was utterly destroyed, a single, miraculously intact Christmas tree was glowing brightly.

He had been so busy he’d lost track of the date, but remnants of a festive Christmas atmosphere lingered in every corner of the ruined street.

“What’s the first thing you want to do when we get back tomorrow? Since it’s Christmas, are you going to meet your girlfriend?”

“Don’t have one of those. Unfortunately.”

Il-hyeon stared off into the distance.

Lee Tae-hee giggled and chattered on.

“It’s a rare day off, so I want to go home and rest properly. Just laze around in bed all day. I want to see my parents, too.”

“You sound like a high schooler on vacation.”

“What about you?”

“Me… hmm, the same.”

A burst of laughter escaped Lee Tae-hee.

Il-hyeon let out a light laugh of his own and pushed away the Phoenix that was trying to creep onto his head.

‘I’m glad Korea is safe.’

His family, his friends, his connections—everything was back in Korea.

The countless scenes of devastation he had witnessed since becoming an Awakened were truly horrific, and he couldn’t bear to imagine his family ever getting caught up in something like that.

Thanks to the numerous high-ranking Awakened stationed there, combined with the country’s small landmass and well-established system, he could confidently say that Korea was safe.

Though his job was to make the entire world safe, he couldn’t help but feel an immense sense of personal relief.

‘They won’t be in any danger…’

Probably.