Pook.

Pook.

Pook.

[Quest completed.

Reward distributed.

10G] [New quest added.

Weed Removal Lv.3

(0/1,000,000)

Reward 20G]

As the level increased, so did the rewards, but it was still just a mundane quest.

‘I didn’t expect much from mundane quest rewards anyway.’

Thinking this, Suji cleared away the weeds without hesitation. With strength, speed, and skill combined, she moved at an inhuman pace.

Humming the work song from the island decoration game she had been playing until just now, she found herself even more enthusiastic as she worked.

Pook.

Pook.

Pook.

[Quest completed.

Reward distributed.

20G] [New quest added.

Weed Removal Lv.4 (Final)

(0/10,000,000)

Νύμφη questions your actions.

Reward 30G, Νύμφη’s Stone]

Suji’s hand, which had been mechanically clearing the ground as if pulling weeds in a game, suddenly stopped.

The time it took to reach the 4th level quest was barely 7 minutes or so?

Suji’s hand, which had been mechanically clearing the ground as if pulling weeds in a game, suddenly stopped.

Although the language settings were clearly working properly, some unfamiliar characters had suddenly appeared.

‘What language is that?’

She narrowed her eyes and scanned the status window log again.

Legendary stories circulating among hunters instantly came to mind. Especially those about the ‘Great Beings’.

It was said that references to them appeared in a different language from the user’s language settings.

Is this what I’m seeing right now?

They say there are moments when the ‘Great Beings’ take notice of individual hunters.

Suji frowned slightly. Then she tried to recall related memories.

She had heard such stories in the social club exclusively for S-rank and above hunters worldwide.

Among them, she had seen only three people who claimed to have experienced it directly. ‘Priya’, the first SS-rank hunter from India, ‘Mathias’, a British-born SS-rank hunter who immigrated to the United States, and ‘Knight’, a former SS-rank hunter currently serving as the deputy director of the Gate Stabilization Department in South Korea.

Their testimonies were all the same.

The ‘Great Beings’ possess unimaginable power, but they are so capricious that they rarely focus their attention.

However, if they happen to take a liking to someone, they observe carefully from afar with curiosity, like humans observing ants. And if they directly lend their power, that hunter could become a being worthy of being called a god.

To be honest, she was skeptical.

Suji was of a higher rank than the three who gave those testimonies, and she had climbed higher towers. There was nothing lacking in her compared to them.

Yet, Suji had never heard the voices of the Great Beings, and the same was true for her team members.

Even when a comrade died before her eyes while raiding a tower, she had never felt even a trace of the ‘Great Beings’.

‘… But why suddenly during such a mundane quest?’

It might be an honor, given how rarely one is chosen, but… Suji was simply baffled.

She ignored the log and resumed her crude weed removal with the dagger.

Pook.

Pook.

Pook.

[(9,999,999/10,000,000)]

Just before completing the Lv.4 quest, Suji abruptly stopped her hand.

There was just a handful of weeds left in front of her.

‘If I pull just one more, it’ll be a perfect clear…’

She was interested in the reward.

Any high-ranking hunter has tremendous curiosity and inquisitiveness. It’s a characteristic of this profession that one can’t survive on brute strength alone.

But a reward from the ‘Great Beings’? That was intriguing. Their true nature was also a mystery.

But at that moment, for some reason, spite overtook curiosity.

They were silent when she was risking her life climbing the tower like a madwoman, but now?

“The weeds have grown so nicely, it’d be a shame to pull them all out. Maybe I’ll leave a few.”

Suji muttered to herself as she straightened up and pushed the dagger back into her inventory.

[Νύμφη questions your actions.]

The same log appeared again.

Although it wasn’t a detailed conversation, she could somehow guess the sentiment behind it.

Looking at that ambiguous number just 1 short of completion, it must feel somewhat frustrated.

But the ‘Great Beings’ need to feel a bit anxious too.

‘They were silent when needed, and now they’re acting on a whim? Just because they speak to me, am I supposed to quietly listen to everything?’

Feeling inexplicably irritated, Suji pretended not to see and started walking towards her house.

[Νύμφη questions your actions.] [Νύμφη questions your actions.] [Νύμφη questions your actions.]

With each step she took, another log appeared.

For beings rumored to be so incredibly great, they seemed more like whining children.

“Sigh… After being quiet all this time, you suddenly pop up and act like you’ve been tremendously interested all along.”

[Νύμφη denies your statement.]

‘What are they denying? Don’t tell me they’ve been interested all along? No, but that’s even worse.’

If that were the case, it would mean they had been leisurely watching her risk her life climbing the tower, like humans observing ants. Not only not helping, but not even speaking until now… She really disliked that idea.

Feeling even more perverse, Suji shook her head and put even her gauntlets into her inventory before entering her house.

[Νύμφη questions your actions.] [Νύμφη questions your actions.] [Νύμφη questions your actions.]

‘Ah, why are they like this.’

Suji, as if annoyed, waved her hand and muted the notification window.

The ‘Great Beings’ might be seeing someone mute them for the first time in their lives, but who cares. It’s too noisy.

At that moment, the quest window, which hadn’t been muted yet, updated.

[Weed Removal Lv.4 (Final)

(9,999,999/10,000,000)

Reward 30G, Νύμφη’s Stone, Νύμφη’s Breath]

The reward had been increased.

‘… At this point, are they thinking I won’t be able to resist? Is that it?’

Suji turned off even the quest window notifications, then took a clean shower, changed into her pajamas, and burrowed into her blanket.

She was enjoying her rare moment of solitude, and dealing with a being that had suddenly intruded into her daily life without her consent felt exhausting.

[This is the timeline separator]

When she woke up after a good sleep, quite some time had passed.

Before falling asleep, the sun was just setting, but now it was late dawn.

“Ah, I slept well.”

As she stretched, she saw only numbers increasing in the muted window.

Since she hadn’t taken any action related to the quest, there was only one reason for notifications to appear.

The ‘Great Being’.

‘Νύμφη or whatever… They’re incredibly persistent.’

Suji had no intention of checking if the quest had been updated.

So, after stretching her whole body here and there to feel refreshed, she got up, and suddenly noticed her tablet blinking in the distance where it was charging.

While others wore their devices like watches, Suji, who found receiving various communications bothersome, eschewed even a terminal and just occasionally exchanged messages via her tablet.

With most of the alarm functions turned off, there were only two cases where alarms appeared on the screen like this.

Either a disaster requiring S-rank or higher hunters had occurred and she needed to deploy immediately, or there was a call from her team members.

But if it were the former, Suji would have known about the situation even if she had been holed up in some dungeon corner.

Among her traits, there was one related to surveillance towers, and she had placed several at equal intervals in each city and province, allowing her to detect dangers above a certain level.

That left only one possibility.

“Saint or Peace?”

Her team members rarely contacted her.

It wasn’t because they were estranged. They were closer than most families. They would risk their lives to protect each other without hesitation.

But knowing that Suji found the media and internet public opinion tiresome, and that she was burdened by the attention and requests directed at SSS-rank hunters, her team members deliberately kept their distance.

So for them to contact her like this after she had forcibly disbanded the party and remained silent for a month, something must be up.

Suji walked to a sunny corner of the room with the tablet and sat comfortably on the sofa.

An enormous amount of mail had accumulated while she hadn’t logged in.

Regular emails from the Hunter Response Department, greetings from her father, recruitment offers or advertising model proposals from quite famous hunters whose names she had heard before.

As she scrolled through, she also saw messages from friends she had spent time with at the academy.

But Suji didn’t check any of them. She only opened the contact from her team member that was displayed as a popup alarm.

The sender was an unexpected person.

“Elaine?”

‘Even if I got a contact, I thought it would be Saint or Peace.’

She had never received a personal contact from Elaine before.

She paused for a moment, a little surprised.