The Hero Returns

* * *

Lee Ju-ho followed Su-hyeun as he left the arena. The two of them rode the elevator that would take them to the surface and out of the underground arena and eventually headed straight to the top floor of the Gordon Tower.

"Uh?"

"Isn't that Kim Su-hyeun?"

"Why is he here? Isn't it the middle of the matches?"

The tourists that came to visit the Gordon Tower recognized Su-hyeun and gasped in surprise. The top floor of the tower featured a lounge where you could view the entirety of San Francisco.

Su-hyeun paid no attention to the people's murmurings and continued to walk forward. He excused himself from a brave few who tried to chat him up and headed straight toward the windows.

Lee Ju-ho had to ask. "H—hey, what are you…?"

Clunk—

Su-hyeun opened a window.

Swish—

"Hey, dude! Where are you going?!" Lee Ju-ho yelled out in surprise from what happened next.

Without any warning, Su-hyeun jumped outside.

Lee Ju-ho didn't possess any skills that allowed him to fly or run in the air, so he couldn't chase after Su-hyeun. The latter waved his hand once and began moving again.

He activated "Leap" outside the windows and headed toward the roof of the Gordon Tower, which was impossible for people to access.

The tower didn't have a roof deck. As there wasn't enough oxygen to breathe up there due to the high altitude of the place, the creation of a roof deck had been deemed unnecessary.

Therefore, understandably, people's eyes would never reach the place, unless they were looking down from the satellites up above.

"I had my fingers crossed, but oh well."

Upon arriving on top of the Gordon Tower, Su-hyeun got to see something even more amazing than the vista spreading before his eyes.

"It's really here."

A corner of the Gordon Tower's rooftop that was not visible from below had changed to a yellowish color. It was not just a faint hue but a bright yellow one.

The coloration was so deep that it would not be strange for an outbreak to occur any time now. If the discovery came about a day later, then monsters would have really poured down into the Gordon Tower.

Why hasn't this thing been discovered yet?

It wasn't as if locating it would be too hard.

Photos taken from the satellites or the unique energy that leaked out from the dungeon would be more than enough for it to be detected.

At this point, Su-hyeun could even faintly pick up on the existence of the dungeon from below the ground. Meaning, the amount of magical energy leaking out from this particular dungeon could not be considered small at all.

Something's wrong.

Su-hyeun turned his head.

His eyes caught the view of San Francisco spread out below the tower.

At first, he wondered if he had made a mistake. However, after arriving at the tower and discovering this dungeon, his suspicions began bubbling up nonstop.

"Hey, Miru," he called out.

The red dragon peeked its head outside, and straight away, it began rubbing its face against him.

If this was any other time, he would have patted his dragon, but now was not the right time for it.

"Fly over there and see if you can find something similar to this. And if there really is one…"

Miru could understand Su-hyeun's words quite well by now. It seemed that after having spent a long time together, the red dragon had gotten rather used to human language.

After sending Miru off, Su-hyeun remained on the spot. As he knew that the dungeon could break out at any given moment, he had to stay put.

Gya-ong—!

Flap—

About one hour later, Miru came flying in from the distance.

"Did you find any?"

At Su-hyeun's question, Miru nodded its head.

His expression hardened. He hadn't been sure, but as it turned out, the dungeon here wasn't the only one.

"How many did you see?"

As Miru couldn't speak in human language, it began flying around in circles in front of Su-hyeun instead. It was trying to tell him the number of dungeons it came across with the number of circles that it made.

But then…

Flap—, flap—

Miru, with its wings unfolded, continued to circle around without any hints of stopping soon.

Something had definitely gone wrong here.

* * *

The fifth match of the round of 32.

This particular match had garnered the biggest attention within the round of 32.

It was Gordon Rohan versus Choi Hak-joon.

Although their nationalities were different, they were fellow guildmates in the Paragon Guild, and they were going head to head.

Clank, slam—!

Hak-joon's sword smacked away Gordon's spear.

The trajectory of the spears descending from above seemingly had no patterns to them. The target would have no choice but to study each attack with his eyes or sense the approaching presence to parry it.

Buzz, buzz—

Both the speed of the fall and the power behind the spear hits were truly outrageous.

It seemed that Gordon didn't plan to go easy on Hak-joon. A few of his spear thrusts even took aim at Hak-joon's vital spots whenever opportunities presented themselves.

Clang—!

Deflecting the spear aiming for his vital spot only brought about another attack with an even greater power behind it.

That earlier spear strike was a feint meant to destroy Hak-joon's stance. The real deal was this one.

Wuuuoong—

However, right at that moment, a massive amount of magical energy exploded out from Hak-joon's sword.

Kwa-aht—!

Swoosh, ka-clang—!

One sword strike from Hak-joon, and all the spears falling toward him shattered into pieces in an instant.

That attack was quite powerful, but that wasn't the end.

Swish— Pah-ahk—

Drip—

A spear brushed past Hak-joon's side. He instantly twisted his body away and grabbed the spear shaft with his hand. Gordon had dug in very close even before anyone could notice it.

He spoke first. "Not bad, kid."

"If this is all…well."

Hak-joon replied with clenched teeth.

Unlike Gordon and his relaxed expression, Hak-joon was sweating profusely from all over his body. He had numerous small nicks and injuries by now. However, they weren't so severe that he would collapse at any second from them.

Of course, he was feeling quite unhappy at the moment.

Damn it, still so far away?

Gordon was defeated by Su-hyeun during the previous Ranking Wars.

Although he felt chuffed by the fact that he could fight to this extent against a man once referred to as the world's strongest, this match also reminded him of the great distance between himself and Su-hyeun.

Moreover, Gordon Rohan was actually going easy on Hak-joon.

The American obviously wouldn't have sat back and not experience any growth in the past two years. It was widely said that he had put in more effort than anyone else to defeat Su-hyeun in this Ranking Wars.

So, more than likely, he could've already ended this match if he wanted to do so.

In that case…

The current situation where their distance had closed up would be Hak-joon's last chance. His eyes took on an even sharper glare, and he gripped his sword even tighter. Gordon sensed something was off and tried to distance himself.

Slice—

Gordon's brows rose up ever so slightly.

The armor on his chest was slightly cut open. Even though he had definitely created some distance, Hak-joon's blade still managed to touch him.

It's done.

Hak-joon's eyes gleamed with delight.

Giii-iiing—

Right then, Gordon's eyes began scanning his surroundings. He figured out just what kind of "space" he found himself in and smirked deeply.

Would you look at this?

The fight that was gradually getting boring suddenly entered a new phase. The thought that things have gotten interesting caused Gordon to strengthen his grip on his spear.

Hak-joon suddenly rushed toward Gordon Rohan once more.

Or at least he tried to.

Ka-boom—!

Just as Hak-joon took one step forward, someone landed in between the two men.

"Hm?"

"Big bro?"

Gordon Rohan was stunned and flinched a little, while Hak-joon's eyes shot wide from the surprise.

It was none other than Su-hyeun who interrupted them. This sudden event left not only the two men but also the audience spectating the match deeply stunned.

"What's this? Why are you butting in all of a sudden?"

Irritated, Gordon Rohan scowled deeply.

He wasn't annoyed simply because the fight had been interrupted like this. As per the tournament's regulation, participants were not supposed to interrupt another's match regardless of their reason.

If something like that did happen, then the participant responsible would be disqualified immediately. Meaning, Su-hyeun had lost his right to participate in the next rounds of matches simply by interfering in this battle.

"Now isn't the right time to do this, unfortunately," Su-hyeun spoke.

"Fuu-woo—! What do you mean, now is not the time?"

Gordon swept his hair back out of habit.

Regardless of the reason, the match had already been paused. Since there were lots of eyes looking on, he couldn't even take Su-hyeun's side no matter how good his explanation was.

"What's going on? Let me at least hear your reasons."

"There's a dungeon right above the Gordon Tower. It's of the yellow rank."

"Was a new one generated in the meantime? Leave it be. It should be fine for at least another 15 days—"

"It wouldn't be strange for this one to break out either today or tomorrow. Something has gone wrong here."

"What was that?"

After hearing Su-hyeun out, Gordon's expression crumpled unsightly.

The dungeons should have been raided ahead of time to accommodate the Ranking Wars, yet there was a dungeon that had been left unattended for so long until now?

Not only that, but the situation also sounded quite serious as it was located on top of the Gordon Tower. Huge crowds had turned up to witness the Ranking Wars, so if the monsters exploded out from a dungeon in such a situation, then an unimaginable tragedy would occur for sure.

"Looks like we'll have to send in some people. If that's the case, we need to hurry."

Whatever the case might have been, it should be an urgent matter according to Su-hyeun's testimony. Even if the matches had to be stopped for a little while, the priority should always be with a dungeon that had been left abandoned for a long while.

Unfortunately…

"If that was all, I would have raided it myself," Su-hyeun spoke up once more.

"What do you mean by that?"

"It's not the only one."

"Okay, how many are there?"

"Throughout the whole of San Francisco… no, wait." Su-hyeun looked around at all the other participants staring at him and continued on, "Dungeons are left unattended throughout the United States."

"Son of a b*tch."

Gordon scratched his head, his face a reflection deep displeasure.

He couldn't really think that what Su-hyeun was saying here was not true. With the latter's personality being what it was, he would never say something like that without confirming everything first.

It could only mean that there were dungeons on the brink of imminent outbreaks numbered more than one or two.

The Ranking Wars might have been important, but with things like this, the tournament couldn't go on anymore.

"So, things have turned out this way."

A voice suddenly cut through the heavy atmosphere.

That voice accompanied by audible tutting belonged to Adel Castle. Naturally, the gazes of Su-hyeun, Gordon Rohan, and Hak-joon all shifted toward him.

"I knew something like this would happen the moment you started pulling in the awakener manpower from everywhere under the pretext of the Ranking Wars and had them raid dungeons in a hurry. I knew that a crisis would break out sooner rather than later. Well, it happened a little quicker than I expected, but still."

"Is this the right time to bring that up?"

Gordon's brows furrowed as he glared at Adel Castle. However, the latter didn't even blink once and replied with his head held high. "It certainly isn't a matter to brush aside, that's for sure. An incident has happened, so it's only natural to search for the cause, isn't it?"

"Oh, so are you saying that it's my fault?"

"If not yours, whose fault could it be? Some portion of the blame lies with the Authority that has failed to detect the dungeon generation ahead of time, but is it not true that the majority of it belongs to the Gordon Company and the Paragon Guild who made us forcibly swallow the unrealistic scheduling to hold the Ranking Wars? Wouldn't you agree, everyone?"

Adel deliberately spoke with a loud voice.

None of what he said was wrong. When you thought about it, the Authority did share some blame, but what caused the scheduling to become like this was due to the Ranking Wars.

Whatever the case might have been, Gordon wouldn't be able to evade the ethical responsibility if something went wrong now.

"Now is not the time to worry about that, okay?"

Whether Adel was wrong or not, worrying about it needed to happen at a later stage. Right now, every second and minute was precious. If a single dungeon in San Francisco went on to become an outbreak, a serious tragedy would happen.

Gordon continued on, "I'll send out the request for aid to all the American guilds, so you should give a call to the Authority in the meantime. Find out exactly where all the unraided dungeons are located."

"I've already called them. However…"

Someone readily answered Gordon's words. At the same time, Johnny Brad revealed himself above the arena.

He then showed the screen of his smartphone to Gordon and spoke, "They are not answering. For some time now."