The Skill Maker

But moments later, he said there wasn’t anything dangerous and expressed that it was odd.

“There’s nothing. There aren’t any walls or floors and it feels like I’m floating in a white s.p.a.ce.”

“There aren’t any monsters?”

“From what I’ve seen so far, there’s nothing. But there is something up ahead over there. It’s too far, so I wasn’t able to check it.”

The hunters thought about the efforts they had to put in while listening to Eugene and Brad’s conversation.

The door they walked through disappeared without a trace after they walked in.

They were just standing in a white s.p.a.ce.

“Then, walking towards it would be the right thing to do.”

The hunters started walking towards the place that Eugene mentioned.

Since there was nothing within this s.p.a.ce, it was hard to tell how far they walked.

‘Interface isn’t getting anything either.’

Hyun-Soo thought he would be able to get something, but he got nothing.

“…It’s another door.”

“You’re right. And this time, there’s five.”

When the hunters were able to confirm what it was that Eugene saw, they all started groaning.

It’s because there was another door.

On top of that, there were two more than the first time.

“I didn’t hear anything about this…”

“Of course. The ones that were supposed to tell us ran away since they couldn’t enter the first door.”

“This is unexpected. What should we do? Do we need to go back? We didn’t prepare for something like this.”

Before accepting the request, they all worked together and thought about the possible situations that could occur and researched different options.

However, since it was a new portal and they weren’t given a lot of information, there was a limit to how much they could prepare for it.

But despite that, they ran a lot of different simulations and prepared for it.

But they didn’t know that something unexpected would appear like this.

During this time, Hyun-Soo realized that one of his a.s.sumptions were correct.

But he wasn’t happy about getting the correct answer.

‘I didn’t think there would actually be seven doors.’

This is the information that Interface provided regarding the second doors.

——————————

[Closed Door][2/7]

A door that leads somewhere.

It’s closed tightly.

There’s only one door that will lead to the right path.

The door will automatically open when a hand is placed on the door.

There’s only one path, so choose carefully.

1/7 was now showing up as 2/7.

The reason for that change was obvious.

Six more from now on…no, it means there are five more gateways.

‘It’s a maze.’

It’s a maze made up of doors.

It was a type of maze that made it difficult to find a way out once you enter the wrong door.

‘First there were three doors. Then five. Since there are seven gateways, I’m a.s.suming the number of doors will increase.’

As the number of doors increases, the choices increases as well.

And among them, there’s probably only one answer.

However, as the number of choices increases, the percentage of choosing the correct answer gets closer to zero.

He had an idea as to why the investigation team gave up.

Of course that didn’t mean he sympathized.

Because he had a cheat that told him the answer.

“If there are five doors, then we won’t know how long it’ll take. The door we came through already disappeared and we don’t even know how to go back out.”

“Won’t we be able to get out once we’ve completely cleared this portal?”

“But, we don’t have enough information to do that. Actually, there are a lot more unexpected things now.”

All the hunters looked stressed out.

Kim Yoo-Na probably didn’t expect there to be another door inside a portal because her expression didn’t look so great.

‘Let’s see the correct choice…it’s the fourth door.’

The Interface was nice enough to tell him the correct answer.

The first, second, third and the fifth door were red and the fourth door was the only one that had a blue light flowing around it.

‘I found the answer.’

Only thing left is to move forward.

It was difficult to tell what was beyond the door, but moving forward was their priority.

The others hunters were discussing amongst themselves about what to do.

Everyone knew that going to inspect it and coming back was impossible, so they needed to be more cautious about it.

Which door were they going to walk through?

If that door wasn’t the correct one, what were they going to do?

How about clearing each door?

And etc.

There were a lot of different ideas.

Hyun-Soo quietly raised his hand within the group.

“Hey, you don’t have to raise your hand like you do in school.”

Someone quietly told him that he just needed to speak up.

“What about going for the fourth door?”

“The fourth door?”

When Hyun-Soo specifically pointed out the fourth door, all the hunters looked confused.

Hyun-Soo felt a bit nervous after saying it.

If someone happened to ask why he chose the fourth door, he wouldn’t have an answer.

He couldn’t say…I have a SS rank skill called Interface and that skill told me.

“We do have to enter one of them though. And there’s no point in continuously contemplating over which door we should go through…”

“You’re right. We won’t know until we try!”

Surprisingly, they didn’t ask Hyun-Soo for the reason.

Hyun-Soo was actually more confused because they just accepted his suggestion.

“Let’s go back to our positions. Try not to get sick.”

The members stood in front of the door after Eugene spoke.

Brad, who was in the front, placed his hand on the door.

Just like the first time, their surrounding became distorted and it felt like the world was being mixed into one.

And then…….

“What kind…of place is this?”

“I think the door is the opponent we’re supposed to fight.”

A white s.p.a.ce appeared once again.

And seven doors were the only things that were in that s.p.a.ce.

‘3/7 closed doors…….’

1/7 had three doors. 2/7 had five doors. 3/7 has seven doors.

Hyun-Soo’s a.s.sumption of the doors increasing by two as they pa.s.sed through the gateway was correct.

‘If this happens all the way up to the seventh gateway, what’s the percentage of someone choosing the correct door and clearing this portal?’

Just from estimating it, it was well over 1/10000.

It might not seem much, but if Hyun-Soo wasn’t there, then they would have to repeat this process several times until they find the right path.

And there wasn’t a guarantee that the other doors were as peaceful as this one.

If monsters existed and if it had a difficult layout, then finding the right path was hard enough.

And if they had to repeat this 100, 1,000, 10,000 times, who would be able to endure it?

Even if they were strong A rank hunters and had an above average body, would they be able to endure it for that long?

And also not having enough food and water.

‘It’s definitely an odd portal. Just trying to find the right path can be a big risk since there’s limited information.’

“It feels like everything we’ve done has been in vain because there’s nothing. I didn’t think we would just be walking through a door…”

“It was the investigation team’s job to find out things like this.”

“But there’s no guarantee that other doors are like this too, right?”

“You’re right. The Super Rookie might’ve been super and actually chose the correct door.”

“Then, it would be best to leave it to them this time too.”

The members were talking amongst themselves.

Then one of them made an a.s.sumption.

“The rookie met with Ariel a few days ago. Do you think he heard something from her?”

But the other hunters that met with Ariel immediately shook their head and said that wasn’t the case.

“No way. There’s no way Ariel would talk in details like that. She was even vague about my break-up with my girlfriend and described it as a ‘bare tree.”

Generally, trees need to bear fruit, but since it couldn’t, it became a lonely, bare tree. That represented their break-up with their girlfriend.

‘So I’m not the only one that heard absurd things from her’

Hyun-Soo felt relieved once he confirmed that he wasn’t the only that heard vague information from her.

“Then did they get a skill or something? The rookie is a Hidden Cla.s.s too. There might be something that only the Hidden Cla.s.ses have.”

They must’ve thought the idea was funny because they sheepishly laughed.

But they must’ve believed what they said, because they quietly glanced over at Hyun-Soo.

‘The fourth door is the correct one this time too.’

Besides the fourth door, all the other doors were red.

He was curious as to what was behind it, but there wasn’t a need to go on a risky adventure.

When hunting a monster, they finish them off quickly after finding their weakness and since he found the answer, there wasn’t a need delay it.

“Which one are you going to choose this time?”

Katrina asked Hyun-Soo.

She must’ve heard what the other members said because it looked like she had high expectations.

“I think choosing the fourth one again will be good.”

“Great. We’ll go through the fourth door again.”

The members that were standing in front of the seven doors all moved towards the fourth door.

But, there was someone that stopped them.

“Wait.”

It was Marcus, the hunter that was in the same group.

He didn’t hide the fact that he was displeased and pointed at Hyun-Soo.

“Why are you following him without questioning him?”

Marcus spoke up asking why they were listening to Hyun-Soo when he didn’t have any proof that he was choosing the correct door.

“He might’ve been lucky the first time, but expecting him to get it right the second time is too much. There’s a need to approach this more carefully starting now.”

“Carefully? How? Are you saying we should send a few of the members first?”

“That may be impossible, but we should run a simulation and…”

“Marcus, we don’t have any information regarding this portal. It’s not that I don’t understand your concern, but we have to open a door in any way we can. No one knows what’s behind the door. And you’re suggesting that we do nothing so that we can prepare for it? It’s better to deal with it as soon as the door is opened. We’re not a weak clan, you know.”

“I…partially agree with that. But I think there’s a need for us to be cautious when choosing a door.”

In short, he was saying that he didn’t trust Hyun-Soo’s decision.

Even though the conversation dragged on, Marcus’s point was obvious.

His att.i.tude towards Hyun-Soo was different from when he was full of pride.

A lot happened since then and his opinion towards Hyun-Soo probably changed.

But it seemed like a part of him was still suspicious of Hyun-Soo.

‘Well…it’s possible for him to feel that way about this.’

It’s interesting how the members followed Hyun-Soo without any hesitation.

They couldn’t be following Hyun-Soo since they had to open a door anyways, but it was interesting how they had high expectations during the second time.

‘Even though I can’t explain why, I have the correct answer, so just follow along quietly.’

Hyun-Soo didn’t want to experience any problems because of this nonsense, so he took a step forward and looked into Marcus’s eyes.

End