The Hero Returns - Chapter 400

* * *

Su-hyeun and Gordon Rohan rode on Miru’s back and flew up high in the sky.​

Su-hyeun waved his hand and commanded the thick clouds covering the sky to recede. When the duo looked down from the cloudless sky, they immediately saw the current situation in the city of Chicago.

Gordon Rohan took in this sight and uttered his honest impression, “It’s like looking at a breakout of molds or something.”

Su-hyeun nodded at that rather blunt assessment.

Gordon Rohan’s description was pretty much on point. It wasn’t just Chicago; seemingly every city in the United States of America was experiencing the same phenomenon.

Countless dungeons appeared everywhere. So many of them popped up that counting all of them was practically impossible. Even Su-hyeun had never seen these many dungeons showing up at once.

“Besides all that, this is simply too fast,” he thought.

He was aware that the future had changed. He was also aware that the time would come when it would no longer be possible to resist the dungeons with the strengths of the awakeners alone.

However, that time had come far too quickly, and the number of dungeons was simply too many.

“There’s no way we can deal with all of them,” he inwardly concluded.

No matter how incredible Su-hyeun was, at the end of the day, he was just one person.

He might have a prior record of raiding every dungeon that had appeared in South Korea by himself, but that was the extent of what he could realistically do.

No matter how quickly he could raid the dungeons, considering the length of time required to travel between different dungeons, conquering a single country’s dungeons would be Su-hyeun’s limit.

He silently calculated, “A majority of them are red. Some orange and green are mixed in among them, too, and a handful of blue can be seen.”

Su-hyeun took a closer look at the dungeons. Thankfully, their overall difficulty wasn’t that high.

“Can I even say thanks in this case, though?” Su-hyeun barely managed to suppress a wry chuckle that tried to break out of his lips, but then, another thought popped up in his head. “Could it be that even Fafnir…?”

Fafnir showed up through a purple-colored dungeon. Su-hyeun remembered that and asked Gordon, “Does the Gordon Company own satellites?”

“Yeah, we do have one. But why do you ask?”

“I’d like to borrow that for a while. There’s something I want to confirm.”

“Huh?”

* * *

As it turned out, the Gordon Company owned two satellites. One was for communication purposes, while the other was for observing and analyzing dungeons.

Both satellites were based on the Ether stone energy technology and crafted out of the highest-grade Ether stones.

Su-hyeun, currently in the heart of the Gordon Company, carefully perused the data transmitted by the satellite.

“Thought as much.”

“The whole world has gone insane, I see.”

Su-hyeun and Gordon Rohan both muttered to themselves while checking out the data.

The data was in the form of a world map displayed on a huge screen. It detailed quite accurately the dungeon situation within each country and each city.

Colored dots on the map indicated the locations of dungeons and their colors, just like how they would’ve been with other national agencies. And those dots, they were virtually covering up the entire planet.

Gordon Rohan muttered again, “This can’t be some kind of error, right?”

“You saw it with your own eyes, didn’t you?”

“Well, that means this crap is all real then,” Gordon Rohan grunted. His thoughts didn’t need too long to process. He resolutely shook his head. “We can’t stop this.”

A long sigh left his lips as he plopped down on a chair. Since he was a smart man, he was able to quickly analyze the unfolding situation.

“This is the end of our civilization. Wait. Forget civilization! It might be the end of humanity itself, the destruction of our planet.”

“…”

“Hey, are you listening?”

When Su-hyeun didn’t reply, Gordon Rohan made a puzzled face.

The confirmation of the data should’ve been over by now, yet Su-hyeun was still staring daggers at the screen. He even manipulated the image to confirm the current dungeon situation in better detail, starting from South Korea and then the rest of the world.

“What is he trying to confirm here?” Gordon Rohan silently observed. He became even more puzzled at Su-hyeun’s current appearance.

Despite how apocalyptic this situation was, Su-hyeun didn’t despair or give up. Rather, it was as if he was fully focused on searching for something.

“Now that I think about it, he asked for access to this data, didn’t he?”

Gordon Rohan didn’t demand an answer and instead chose to sit still and quietly wait until Su-hyeun was prepared to speak up.

In the middle of this, Su-hyeun’s eyes continued to dart around the map.

“It’s not there,” Su-hyeun quietly realized.

He had already experienced the phenomenon unfolding right now. It was the exact same situation that occurred as the purple-colored dungeon manifested itself—the dungeon where Fafnir showed up from.

That was why Su-hyeun was fully focused on finding the purple-colored dungeon, but…

“No matter how much I look, it’s not there.”

Despite the phenomenon being similar, he couldn’t spot the purple dungeon anywhere.

There were 11 indigo-colored dungeons. As for dungeons below blue in color, there were so many that it was a near-hopeless task to count them all.

However, it seemed that Fafnir wasn’t thinking of making its appearance just yet.

Su-hyeun slightly furrowed his brows. “Not sure if I should feel happy about this or not…”

“What’s there to feel happy about?”

“Ah, no, I didn’t mean it that way.” Su-hyeun didn’t go out of his way to offer a detailed explanation. The current situation didn’t require an explanation, and they couldn’t waste time explaining, anyway. “First of all, we need to inform everyone about the crisis.”

“I’ve already done that through my secretary. Since the situation is sh***y as f**k, I told him to quickly send the word out to mass media.”

“What about the solution, though?”

“While you were trying to bore a hole in my screen with your eyes, I was thinking of one.”

“Did you succeed?”

“No.” Gordon Rohan resolutely shook his head. “How about you, though?”

“Hmm…Well, I wonder…” Su-hyeun trailed off, only to shake his head. “Honestly, I’m not that confident,” he continued.

“Not confident, you say?” Gordon Rohan tilted his head this way and that, wondering what Su-hyeun was saying here. “It’s not like, I’ve thought of a way, but you’re simply not feeling confident?”

“Well, rather than calling it a solution…” Su-hyeun recalled an event that happened back in the false World Tree before finishing his reply. “I’ll just have a go at it and see what happens.”

* * *

Hundreds of thousands of dungeons showed up throughout the world.

This event threw the whole world into unprecedented chaos.

The dungeons that had shown up first would’ve been prioritized in the list of raids in normal times, but for the newly materialized dungeons, people had given up on raiding them and simply left them be.

There could only be one choice to make, after all.

“What kind of mess is this?”

Da-dadada…

“Please pay attention. All residents residing in Yeongdeungpo-dong District One are advised to quickly evacuate to…”

Hak-joon was currently standing in the middle of a street, observing the citizens hurriedly moving along according to the public announcements.

Dungeons could be seen literally everywhere. For instance, in this Yeongdeungpo-dong District One alone, the number of dungeons was well over a few dozens, making it impossible to deal with them.

For some reason, more dungeons seemed to have appeared in South Korea than in other places. The response the Awakener Authority came up with was to designate shelters for people to evacuate to, give priority to raiding the dungeons around those areas, and then protect all those people inside the evacuation shelters.

“Is this really the apocalypse?”

“I’m sure he has a plan.”

Lee Ju-ho walked over to Hak-joon’s side. Now that the “apocalypse” was literally right in front of their noses, they had no choice but to believe in one man.

“I’ll try whatever I can.”

That was Su-hyeun’s reply when the reporters asked him whether or not he had a solution to the current crisis.

“Whatever I can,” he said. In a way, such a statement sounded like a rather irresponsible thing to say, and people began thinking the same thing after listening to his reply—that even Kim Su-hyeun had no solution to speak of.

“What will we do when even you’re thinking like that? Will you look at this first?”

“What?” Hak-joon stared at the screen of the smartphone Lee Ju-ho handed over.

Several new articles showed up online every minute or so. Among the deluge, he spotted an article detailing the interview Su-hyeun did.

[Is this the End of the World? Kim Su-hyeun’s Advice: Please Do Not Run Away.]

This so-called article was one of those blatant rip-off Internet hack jobs that simply copy/pasted Su-hyeun’s interview.

To their credit, the person who wrote the article even added their own opinion and came to the conclusion that Su-hyeun had no solution in mind, so he simply chose to say some words of encouragement instead.

However, Lee Ju-ho and Hak-joon knew Su-hyeun well, and as such, their thoughts were quite different from the article’s conclusion.

“I guess he really has something in mind, after all.”

“Right. He’s not the type to say stuff like that without a plan.”

“But he doesn’t sound that confident…”

“When did he ever sound confident of his plans?”

“Ah, that’s true, isn’t it?” Vigor returned to the light gleaming in Hak-joon’s eyes as he replied.

There was a way.

That idea alone was enough to give them a fighting chance. When the light started gleaming within Hak-joon’s eyes as expected, Lee Ju-ho smirked softly.

He shifted his gaze back to his smartphone’s screen and quietly tutted, “But then, this dude…I knew it. He’s just not wise enough on things like this. It seems that he was worried about many awakeners choosing to give up on this side and hiding in the tower, but at this rate…”

When Lee Ju-ho groaned under his breath, Hak-joon asked in a puzzled voice, “What will you do?”

Seeing that Lee Ju-ho brought that topic up, he’d definitely do something about it. If the real source of power behind the Paragon Guild was Su-hyeun, then Lee Ju-ho was the one who provided justification for that power to act—someone who ensured that what Su-hyeun wanted would turn into reality.

“I’ll have to think about that from now on,” said Lee Ju-ho, biting and chewing his lower lip. He made this expression whenever he was deeply pondering something.

He then turned around and began walking away to somewhere. Hak-joon watched him leave and sighed at length, “Looks like something will happen, but…”

Thinking about Su-hyeun made him feel hopeful of the future, but this sense of frustration quickly returned to fill his chest the moment he took in the surrounding sights. “It’d be nice if someone turns this event into a movie after all the dust settles down.”

The screams and tearful cries of people hurriedly evacuating could be heard.

Hak-joon studied the faces of the evacuating people filled with so much anxiety and quietly muttered to himself, “And they should title it as the Apocalypse or something.”

Of course, that would be if everyone managed to survive.

* * *

Currently, on top of the tallest mountain in the world, Mount Everest…

Conquering this mountain was something to be proud of for the rest of one’s life, and one man and a dragon were standing on this peak seemingly filled with nothing but winds cold enough to penetrate one’s soul.

“Wow, it’s really high up here, isn’t it?”

Gya-ong—

Su-hyeun smirked at Miru’s reply. The red dragon was making a face that reflected exhaustion right now, but that wasn’t all that surprising.

It wasn’t them simply climbing up Everest, but the truth was, they had been traveling all around the globe until now.

“Just a little bit more, please. About 15 days or so from now on.”

Gya-oh-ohng—

Miru cried out pitifully. If it could speak in the human tongue, it probably would’ve said, “For 15 more days?!”

Su-hyeun smirked again. It seemed that he needed to let the red dragon rest for a little while longer and then hoof it around even more urgently later. “Okay, I got it. Let’s rest up for 10 more minutes before moving out.”

After saying that, Su-hyeun looked down toward the base of the mountain.

This panoramic view when seen from the world’s highest spot with no cloud cover to spoil it was quite literally breathtaking. No matter how many times he looked at the expansive mountain range covered in snow and the scenery stretching below, he thought that he’d never get tired of this view.

He began to understand just a little why people craved so much to climb tall mountains.

“I wish I could go on a trip,” Su-hyeun muttered softly while taking in this view.

He didn’t even feel the cold trying to restrain his body. His physique that had now reached the realm of a demisupreme-ruler always maintained the most optimal state regardless of where he was, whether it was hot as hell or against the biting cold winds of Mount Everest.

Taking in the most beautiful view of the world in his peak condition, he abruptly thought that it would be nice to live a life spent mostly on traveling the world with a body like this one.

“How long would doing that take me, I wonder?”

He had no way of finding out how long that would take. In reality, though, no one knew whether such a time would come or not in the first place.

Su-hyeun sat down and lost himself in this sweet dream for a little while.

And so, the promised 10 minutes ticked by like that.

He was genuinely tempted to just sit still here and take in this scenery. Maybe that was the reason why he let one or two more minutes fly by as well.

“Okay. Let’s get going now.”

Gya-ong—

Miru replied to Su-hyeun’s call.

He got to spend some time lost in happy thoughts. He even wasted a little more time on top of the absolutely necessary break too. In a way, one could say that lives of countless people were hanging in the balance on those few precious minutes.

“We need to hurry if we want to get it done in time.”

Su-hyeun began moving once more.