At the step where she was meant to enter the Gate, Scáthach got held up by an unexpected snag.
It wasn't anything major—just the meticulous Association staffer stationed at the entrance insisting on a special-clearing permit even after confirming she was an S-Rank Hunter. He even lectured her that "even S-Rank Hunters cannot ignore Association regulations," and that she would not be allowed through until the minimum party size requirement was met.
Seriously… this isn't what I was promised.
With a quiet sigh, Scáthach called Chairman Go Gunhee on the spot and handed her phone to the overly earnest guard. Then she lounged against the safety line, watching the man's face go tight with nerves as he took the call.
A few brief sentences later, the staffer bowed deeply and returned her phone with sweat on his brow, apologizing over and over—suddenly too afraid to say one more word.
At the same time, a ripple of commotion rose nearby. Outside the barrier, traffic police were struggling to clear the jam, and some drivers close enough caught sight of Scáthach.
"Is that… Hunter Scáthach?"
"Purple hair and red eyes—way too distinctive!"
"Why is she here? Don't tell me she's here to deal with the Gate?"
"Whoa… she's even prettier in person than on TV. And she's got that super-dom vibe!"
"Just to be clear, I'm not a pervert… but why do I suddenly want Miss Scáthach to step on me?"
"Why is she alone? Where's her team? Don't tell me she's trying to clear a Dungeon by herself. Even for an S-Rank, that's dangerous."
"Isn't she S-Rank mainly because she can see the future? I haven't seen her show anything crazy in terms of combat strength…"
"With someone this important, I doubt she'd be doing Dungeon clears, right? Look—she's not even wearing gear. She's just in normal clothes."
In the Jeju Island operation, Scáthach hadn't exactly had a flashy moment, but plenty of people remembered her from the broadcast—the mysterious S-Rank with future sight.
A few reporters who had arrived even earlier were already trying to push forward for an interview. Scáthach was far more mysterious than even Sung Jinwoo and Esil—there was almost nothing about her online. Before Jeju Island, people hadn't even known this new S-Rank's name or what she looked like.
"I can go in now, right?" Scáthach asked.
"Of course, of course! Please—go right ahead…"
The staffer who had been so strict a moment ago was now sweating buckets. The terrified, overly deferential look on his face made Scáthach wonder—was Chairman Go Gunhee really that frightening? When he spoke with her, he'd been nothing but a gentle, kindly old man.
Scáthach dipped her head slightly. Her crimson lips parted, and a bewitching murmur spilled out.
"Come out."
"Huh? Come out—what?" The Association worker blinked, baffled, not understanding what she meant.
Then, in the next second, the confusion froze on his face—turning into stunned horror.
Scáthach's shadow boiled and surged, spreading like an ink pool overflowing its edges. One after another, shadow soldiers rose in formation. The mana coiling around them wove into a suffocating pressure that made the air itself feel thick and heavy.
Armored shadow knights. Giant orcs with savage fangs. Soldier ants whose jointed legs clicked against the ground…
All of these varied shadow soldiers were ones Sung Jinwoo had lent Scáthach for the time being.
The solemn, terrifying spectacle made the onlookers suck in breath after breath, startled cries breaking out in waves.
"Aren't those Hunter Sung Jinwoo's summons?!"
"Why can Hunter Scáthach summon them too?!"
The whispers and suspicious stares had nothing to do with Scáthach. Leading the silent Shadow Army, she walked forward at an unhurried pace and stepped into the Gate's faint blue glow without looking back.
The instant the last shadow soldier vanished into the curtain of light, the Gate shuddered violently. The flowing radiance at its center changed in a blink—its gentle pale blue turning into a heart-stopping crimson.
Scáthach glanced back.
The Gate she had entered through was no longer visible.
"Interesting. A Red Gate, is it?"
The monsters inside a Red Gate were more dangerous, and Hunters who entered couldn't leave until they killed the Final Boss.
But that clearly wouldn't trap Scáthach. She could cross even the boundary between life and death; carving open a path back to Earth would be as easy as taking a drink of water.
"Still, there's no need to leave." Scáthach swept her gaze over the surroundings and found herself standing in a blinding snowfield. A biting wind hurled curtains of powdery snow, as if it meant to bury every trace of warmth and life. "The more dangerous it is, the more fun. If a few Monarch-class opponents showed up, that would be even better… though that's unlikely."
Suddenly, a silver bolt cut through the snowfall.
CLANG—!
An ice-crystal arrow wrapped in winter-kill intent tore through the air, its head refracting a chilling light. Yet before it could come within five meters of Scáthach, a shadow soldier raised a sword and knocked it aside. Black blade met ice with a crisp ring, shards of frost spraying in glittering arcs.
"Hm… natives?" Scáthach murmured, as calm as ever. "They don't seem to welcome us."
There was no panic in her face—only anticipation, only hunger for a worthy fight.
"But that's fine. We came here to kill them." Her voice cut clean through the howling wind. "In a war this cruel—where if you don't kill them, they'll kill you—there's no reason to feel guilty about taking life."
The monsters had already gathered, stepping out from the forest's shadows. The first time you saw them, their beauty could mislead you into calling them ice elves. But Hunters who had actually fought them called them White Ghosts—because these creatures delighted in butchering humans, savoring games of slow torment.
Scáthach strolled forward, her magnificent purple hair whipping in the snowstorm. She crossed the shadow soldiers' line as if it didn't exist and stood alone at the very front.
"Don't do anything unnecessary," she said to the shadow soldiers behind her without turning her head, voice clear despite the gale.
White Ghosts were craftier than ordinary monsters. They used terrain and tactics, and they targeted the weakest member of the party first—especially healers. They understood the logic of cutting down the backline.
The fact that they'd fired an ice arrow at Scáthach meant they'd judged her an easy mark—soft and squeezable.
When Scáthach stepped out from the shadow soldiers' protection, the White Ghosts couldn't comprehend it, but their cruel grins widened. One male White Ghost attacked first. He crushed the snow underfoot, moving like lightning, and his ice-crystal sword cleaved through the storm—straight for Scáthach's throat.
The blade tore the wind apart, closing to within an inch of her pale neck. The White Ghost's face twisted into bloodthirsty joy; it could already picture hanging her head up as a trophy.
Then the edge touched her skin.
And the White Ghost's grin froze.
With a sharp bang, the sword—sharp enough to split stone—exploded into countless ice fragments the instant it made contact. Shards glittered with an eerie sheen against the white snow.
Scáthach's skin didn't even show a scratch.
Before the White Ghost could process it, a fist—delicate-looking, almost too pretty—crashed into its face with the force of a storm surge.
It went flying.
The White Ghost slammed into the snow like a snapped kite, carving a long trench. When the kicked-up powder finally settled, its head was grotesquely misshapen, its neck twisted at an impossible angle. It was already dead.
The other White Ghosts went rigid at the sight, eyes reflecting Scáthach as she calmly drew her fist back. They looked… at a loss.
"Where's your king?" Scáthach flexed her wrist lazily and advanced, crunching snow underfoot. The killing intent in her voice was sharper than the winter wind. "Let it come fight me."
"Or…" Her lips curved faintly. "…do I have to kill all of you first?"
This time, Scáthach didn't draw her beloved spear, Gáe Bolg. She simply spread her long fingers and stepped into the White Ghost pack as if she were strolling through a garden.
The first tried to ambush her from behind. She caught its head with one hand. There was a clean crack of bone—and its body collapsed limply to the ground, neck twisted a full one-eighty.
The second roared and thrust an ice spear. Scáthach slipped aside, then drove her fist into its chest like a viper striking. The invisible force punched through its ribcage, crushed its heart and lungs. By the time she withdrew her hand, it was already dead.
The third leapt at her through the air. She grabbed its ankle and swung it down like a club—smashing it into the fourth White Ghost that was trying to sneak in. The impact sprayed snow in all directions. When the icy dust cleared, only a smear of mangled flesh remained, the original shapes impossible to make out.
She walked through the blizzard at her leisure, leaving behind White Ghost corpses in every grotesque configuration. The snow—once pristine—was dyed red with their blood.
Staring at one muddy, slushy pile of meat blending into the ice, Scáthach frowned slightly and muttered, thoughtful.
"Hm… if it ends up like this, can it still be sold outside?"
She turned to the shadow soldiers at her side.
In perfect synchrony, they all shook their heads. Unable to speak, it was the only way they could say, No idea.
The White Ghosts' cunning was infamous among Hunters, but many greenhorns still couldn't imagine just how devious they could be.
From Scáthach's own experience, they would use blizzards to grind down a human's will and stamina, lure other monsters in the Dungeon to swarm their target, fake death, or bury themselves in snow for ambushes.
Even an S-Rank Hunter, if careless, could be dragged into a ditch by this pack and die ugly.
White Ghosts, snow-giant brutes, tundra wolves…
In the end, Scáthach handled almost the entire Dungeon herself—and enjoyed every second of it.
The Final Boss was the White Ghosts' leader. That one was a master of hiding. After glimpsing Scáthach's strength, it refused to show itself at all. By the time Scáthach found it, her patience was gone—she killed it without a word.
A shadow ant was hunched over a White Ghost corpse, tearing at the flesh with sharp mouthparts. Scáthach strode over and kicked the lazy glutton flying.
"I borrowed you from little Jinwoo to carry things, not to eat at an all-you-can-eat buffet," she scolded. "If you eat all the monster corpses, what exactly are little Jinwoo and I supposed to sell for money?"
Shadow soldiers weren't mindless machines. After Sung Jinwoo converted them, they remained absolutely loyal to him—but they also retained parts of their former personality, intelligence, and memories.
The ants, for example—when they'd been alive, trapped on resource-starved Jeju Island, they'd fought to survive through a hell of cannibalism. Even now, as immortal shadow soldiers, that primal hunger was still rooted deep in their souls, twisting into an endless, unsatisfied appetite.
Not far away, several giant orcs were competing to see who could carry the biggest, heaviest monster corpse. Orcs naturally liked to keep the bodies of strong enemies as trophies—a way to display their strength and status. A few shadow mages clapped and cheered them on.
After the White Ghost leader died, a Blue Gate appeared again in the storm, waiting. The shadow soldiers—already loaded down with mountains of loot—filed through the curtain of light in orderly lines, returning to Earth.
Their emergence startled the witnesses outside the Gate, but the crowd quickly realized these were Hunter Sung Jinwoo's summons. Excitement erupted. Phones came out everywhere; camera flashes flickered nonstop.
The giant orcs at the front looked almost shy, scratching the backs of their heads as they basked in their unexpected celebrity treatment. In life, when had they ever been watched with such fervor? Without realizing it, they stood a little straighter.
Scáthach stepped out of the Gate at an unhurried pace. Her eyes swept over the shadow soldiers hauling their spoils. In her hand, she toyed with a fist-sized mana crystal, tossing it up and catching it again and again.
"Well," she mused, "now the Hunters who keep accusing me of wasting resources… won't have any reason left to file complaints, will they?"