Third POV:
The camera light flared red.
The reporter kept her smile steady, but her eyes never stopped moving over the yellow tape, across the torn asphalt, back to the Blue Gate pulsing with visible mana distortions in the air.
"We're still here at the scene," she said into her mic, voice calm as if calm could make it true. "Rescue teams are bringing people out one by one, and we're waiting for confirmation on how many survivors remain inside."
Behind her, medics guided severely injured Hunters toward waiting ambulances. Armor hung in pieces, bandages wrapped around the skin, and blood had gone dark on larger wounds. At the edge of the frame stood a girl in civilian clothes too still, too quiet to belong, staring at the Gate like she was looking at something no one else could see.
She stared at gate as it slowly crumbled as Hunters who came into the scene to clear the gate scrambled out as mana was spreading out of the gate thinly then it rapidly closed.
Many of the newly arrived Hunters who recently came into the scene were shocked to a gate close that fast, then looking over to the Hunters who came out of it assuming they were the one who closed it, White Fang guild.
'If it's already closing why bother making us go in?' Kim Chul thought to himself as his face was tense as he scanned the area, not even noting the civilian girl who was near the injured.
Myorin POV:
I looked over the survivors and injured looking to see if my best friend who I shared a decent childhood with whether if he's still alive, 'A guy like him dying? Probably not, that guy is tough as nails from the amount of suffering he took.' I tried lighting up the mood for myself while looking for him.
Then I saw it, his low-quality dyed hair playing his favorite game, Limbus Company with one arm, he was so absorbed that he didn't notice me approaching him, he only did notice when tapped his shoulder and he slowly turned to face who interrupted his rolling session.
"Oh, it's you." Then he promptly went back to playing Limbus Company.
Sigh
"Here I was worried that you'd be eaten up by the monsters in the dungeon, and look we closed the dungeon and all I get from you is "Oh, it's you." But still, I'm glad you're not 6ft under bro." sitting down next to him draping on his shoulder, careful not to touch the amputated side.
"Yeah, I'm glad you're safe too." We sat there for 1 minute before separating since one of the volunteer healers came over and healed his wounds, but it didn't heal back his arm.
"Right," Naoya said, and it came out too quick like he was trying to end the conversation before it could sink its teeth in. His fingers kept worrying at the edge of his sleeve, eyes flicking from the healers to the crowd to the Gate like it might reopen just to prove him wrong. "We should go. Like… now. Before they start asking questions."
He forced a laugh that didn't really land. "Also, uh don't look now, but the news vans are everywhere. And the 7/11 kind of got blopped out of existence, so I'm… I'm gonna need a new job." He talked faster as he went, stacking worries on top of each other like if he kept them moving, none of them would tip over. "We can figure it out later. Home first. Shower. Sleep. Anything that isn't… this."
"Right, right… we should probably get going" We walked away from the scene quietly before someone questioned us.
Third POV:
When the rush around the ambulances thinned and the medics stopped blocking the shot, the reporter shifted her stance and turned slightly, keeping the fading Gate looming in the background. Her eyes swept the area again over stretchers, over scattered equipment, over faces she hadn't seen a minute ago.
The girl from earlier the one the staff had been calling a survivor wasn't there anymore. No stretcher. No blanket. Just an empty patch of asphalt where she'd stood too quietly to draw attention, and the uneasy feeling that the scene had changed without anyone noticing.
She lifted the mic a little higher. "We're going to try to get a first-hand account," she said smoothly, already stepping toward a Hunter whose armor was cracked at the shoulder and smeared with grime that didn't look like dirt. He'd been one of the first to stumble out one of the original party.
"Sir, just a few questions. How many went in, and how many made it out?"
The Hunter's jaw worked as if he had to force the numbers out. "Not enough," he said, voice rough. "We lost people. A lot of them." His gaze kept drifting past the camera, past the ambulances back to the spot where the civilian girl had been. "But… we wouldn't have made it out at all if she hadn't been there."
The reporter blinked once, composure intact. "She? You mean the last civilian survivor?"
"She's not a civilian," he said immediately, like the correction hurt to swallow. "She's a mage. Or something. She didn't have gear, so we thought she was just… caught up in it." He exhaled through his nose, a short, shaky breath. "Then she raised her hand and summoned these cats. Not illusions. Real summons. They tore into the monsters like claws could cut through hide. And there were more and more of them, like a swarm."
For half a second, the reporter's eyes flicked off camera again. "Do you know her name?" she asked, still smiling for the broadcast, "Where is she now?"
The Hunter looked lost. "No. We… we didn't even get a chance to ask." His eyes darted across the barricade line as if expecting to spot her by accident. "She was right there, and then she was gone. Didn't wait for the medics. Didn't wait for the Guilds. Just… vanished."
Off to the side, a White Fang staffer replayed the Hunter's words in his head summoned cats, no gear, not a civilian. He didn't hesitate. Phone up, thumb moving fast. "Chief Ahn," he said the moment the call connected, "you need to flag this mage for Guildmaster Baek. She walked out of a gate with no insignia… and her summons shredded monsters."
The call didn't reach Baek Yoonho directly not yet. It climbed the chain fast, and when it finally hit the Guildmaster's phone, the room around him seemed to go quieter.
Baek answered on the first ring. No greeting just a low, patient silence that made the caller rush to fill it. As the report came through, his gaze sharpened, pupils narrowing like an animal. "A mage," he repeated softly. "Who can summon a horde without tiring."
He stood, chair legs scraping once against the floor.
"Find her," Baek said, with slight urgency "Before someone else realizes her potential."