I Became a Goblin Ancestor

Gate Rampage.

People named it thus – the calamity where gates were created haphazardly all over the world from a certain day, endlessly pouring out monsters.

Originally, there were at most about a dozen gates in one country.

In slightly larger countries, there were just under thirty gates, but when the Gate Rampage occurred, such statistics became laughable, and at least over a hundred gates began to appear in each country.

Naturally, with over a hundred gates simultaneously pouring out monsters, the human casualties became even greater than when gates first appeared in the world, and all countries, sooner or later, were heading towards destruction.

Of course, as gates increased and monsters poured out, intelligent beings from other worlds also poured out in numbers incomparable to before, so people tried to extend their dwindling lifeline by forming alliances with new intelligent races that were cooperative and had strong powers or special abilities, strengthening their forces.

However, this only extended their lifeline a little, and couldn’t change the future of humanity’s extinction.

As a minimum mercy, perhaps, the rampaging gates didn’t increase further, but the over hundred gates still periodically poured out more monsters than those that died, and the speed at which people’s lifelines burned out only accelerated.

People became food for monsters everywhere, were buried under collapsing buildings, and went mad with dwindling food supplies in isolated situations.

Many people despaired of the future to come and gave up their will to live, but even in such situations, if there was someone leading from the front, human beings tended to unite in that hope.

From ancient times, humans have been those who stubbornly survived and preserved themselves amidst countless threats to life.

Therefore, those who didn’t give up wracked their brains and gambled on the path to extinction.

The system of countries had long since half-collapsed, but even so, they didn’t want to simply give up their lives.

The first thing they implemented was to create a cage to protect themselves.

Each country mobilized all available forces to gather hunters and civilians from across the country in areas with the fewest gates and built a cage.

Using the power of intelligent beings who had crossed over from other worlds and formed alliances, and the power of existing hunters, they built a new city isolated from the outside.

Korea took about 1/4 of Gyeonggi-do centered on Seoul, built thorough walls, then gradually eliminated the gates inside, seeking peace within the city. By gathering all forces together to eliminate the relatively few gates, they were soon able to complete the initial construction of the city.

And after building such a city that would be the first step, albeit just a skeleton, the next thing people did was to implant genes of other-world races into their own bodies.

This was a method that had already been verified for safety through experiments conducted with mana stones obtainable from gates and genes of other races, so people didn’t hesitate.

People implanted the genes of other races, excluding those who were reluctant to hand over their genes or those with weak genes, into mana stones and implanted them into their bodies. Although considerably degraded, the implantation of other race genes greatly strengthened humanity’s forces.

Most civilians in the city became power sources not inferior to existing hunters, and those who were originally hunters saw their strength increase to an extent that could be called drastic.

Thanks to this, people were able to safely protect the initial city that had been precarious with just its skeleton, and after a long battle of two years, people completed the defense city that would protect them.

And inside this defense city, people began to slowly walk on a new branch path, avoiding extinction.

And so, from the Gate Rampage that was a crisis of extinction… 70 years have passed.

The defense city that grew brilliantly, joining hands with races from other worlds.

Now, 70 years after the Gate Rampage of 2023, which was called hell in history books, gates were no longer objects of danger to people in the city.

For modern people, gates were just dens of monsters that gave high amounts of credits.

The gates that remained and were managed throughout the defense city were work sites for the strong, where only a select few with the envied job of Hunter were allowed to enter and exit.

Now, in the world inside the defense city, only the credits that could be earned through labor and the more powerful genes that could be implanted in mana stones determined a person’s value.

And in the center of such a defense city, at the top of one of the five towering towers, a woman looking down at the city while leaning on the window let out a small sigh.

“…Haah.”

A woman with jet-black hair like silk, neatly braided and tied back.

The woman, whose appearance anyone would call beautiful, felt the coldness of the window touching her hand and muttered to herself in a low voice.

“That Team Leader Geum-ryu… He’s spouting nonsense about my ancestor being alive as he pleases.”

What the woman was recalling was none other than the memory from the regular meeting that had just ended.

To be more precise, it was the memory from the meeting of the team leaders of the five factions that held the thick strings of the Korean defense city, having received and monopolized the world’s best genes.

In this regular meeting, Team Leader Geum-ryu, who seemed quite displeased that she led the meeting as the center, picked a fight by mentioning the survival of the owner of the genes they held, abbreviated as ‘ancestor’.

Of course, as he didn’t hesitate to make remarks that subtly crossed the line, he was soon suppressed by Team Leader Cheol-dan and Team Leader Pan-beop, but the words Team Leader Geum-ryu had said had already dug into the woman’s mind, subtly provoking her anger.

“If I had met him in a private setting, he wouldn’t have dared… To spout such nonsense under the guise of an official statement.”

If the city’s power were a pie, the faction with the largest share among the five factions was the woman’s own faction, the ‘General Management Team’.

The reason was, of course, that the genes possessed by the General Management Team of the Korean defense city were powerful enough to be counted among the top two in the world.

Therefore, by monopolizing such genes, the General Management Team led by the woman was able to grasp the thickest string among the five power strings of the defense city, and could even obtain management rights for the entire city, including some of the authorities of the other four factions.

However, if there was one thing where the General Management Team, with such strong power, was inferior to other factions, it was only one thing.

It was the survival status of the owner of the implanted genes, the one called the ancestor.

“The other team leaders didn’t say it out loud, but… they must have agreed inwardly.”

Unlike the ancestors of other factions who had been together since the city was first built and had continued for generations, the ancestor of the General Management Team was a being discovered in a cave on Mount Seorak during an exploration of the outside area after the city was built.

By sheer coincidence, a cave discovered by the woman’s family while exploring, led by a small light.

At first, the woman’s family thought it was just a corner of a jewel revealed in a cave on Mount Seorak, which had collapsed due to the Gate Rampage.

But soon after removing the surrounding rocks and confirming the complete form of the jewel, the woman’s family realized that it was not a simple jewel but amber encasing a race from another world, and immediately smuggled it into the city.

And when they started proper research, what they found out was that the genes of the being inside the amber were something on a different level from the genes of other-world races so far.

Although much of the information about the outside world, which was already no different from ruins, was lost, and they couldn’t know exactly what race it was, they could at least tell it was a race of a different caliber.

Naturally, immediately after finding this out, the woman’s family implanted the genes of the unknown being in the amber into mana stones and implanted them into themselves, and by enshrining the being in the amber as their ancestor, they rose to the current position of the General Management Team.

“There’s no doubt that the ancestor is alive… But they…!”

The ancestor sleeping in the amber was clearly alive.

However, for 60 years since the ancestor was first discovered and the General Management Team was established, the ancestor did not wake up from the amber, and now it was being treated and ignored as a half-dead being.

Of course, since this ancestor was none other than the ancestor of the General Management Team, no one dared to mention it verbally, except for Team Leader Geum-ryu who was always steeped in negative emotions, but how could one not know from their attitudes?

They were also part of the five factions, so they couldn’t question their attitudes and quietly let it pass, but from the standpoint of the woman who sincerely respected and revered the ancestor, this was something she couldn’t help but be angry about.

“But still, there’s nothing I can do…”

However, all the woman could do was spend her days faithfully doing her work as she had been doing so far, hoping for the ancestor to wake up.

And today, after finishing the regular meeting, her regular time that happened every day came with a knock.

Knock knock–

[Ms. Lee Yeon-ah, it’s time to visit the ancestor.]
“I know. Let’s go right away.”

Every day at 12 o’clock. The time to face the ancestor before starting the day’s work.

Lee Yeon-ah, the team leader of the General Management Team, got up from the window she was leaning on at the man’s voice from outside, came out of the room, and boarded the elevator with the man who bowed his head to her.

“I suppose there were no problems in the ancestor’s room today as well?”
“Yes, there were no issues as always. And the ancestor is still unconscious.”

The ancestor had not opened their eyes for 60 years since Yeon-ah’s father’s time.

Although she had this time to check and look after the ancestor every day, the expectation that they would wake up had long since dimmed, so she nodded indifferently.

Ding–

“We’ve arrived.”

And after being lost in thought for a while, Yeon-ah raised her head at the elevator’s arrival notification sound.

As the doors that had been closed with the mechanical sound began to open, the empty space in the basement of the General Management Team tower was revealed.

In the silver-gray space dimly lit only by the light of mana stones, there was only an amber jewel about 2m in size sitting alone.

It might have been a space that someone would call empty if they saw it, but the emptiness of this silver-gray space had long been filled with just the presence of the ancestor in that amber.

“You’re peacefully asleep today as well.”

A girl silently sleeping with her eyes closed inside the amber.

Wearing a stone mask over her eyes, wrapped in a leopard-print straw mat, holding a club in her hand and kneeling – at a glance, she looked like an elaborately made doll.

However, as if to say that she was undoubtedly a living being, Yeon-ah muttered softly, almost reciting, as she placed her hand on the amber, hearing the heartbeat if she listened closely.

“Everything is already prepared to serve you, ancestor… Why haven’t you woken up yet…”

Preparations to serve the ancestor had been meticulously made since the time of Yeon-ah’s father, who discovered her and established the General Management Team.

Of course, their current position, their power, all of it was thanks to the genes received from the ancestor, and it could disappear by the awakened ancestor, so they had no choice but to prepare meticulously.

However, at least Yeon-ah herself sincerely respected and deeply followed the ancestor, her ancestor, apart from such petty gains and losses, so she uttered the words she habitually spoke.

“I know you won’t wake up today either, but…”

As she had made up her mind long ago, the expectation that she would wake up had long since dimmed and worn out by now.

But perhaps because of the unnecessary thoughts she had fallen into after hearing such words at today’s regular meeting, Yeon-ah, who had a earnest wish for a while, muttered so with sincerity, and after quietly closing her eyes for a few minutes, she slowly turned her steps.

“That’s all for the time with the ancestor… Now let’s return to today’s work. Order each department that hasn’t started work yet to finish their preparations.”
“Yes, understood.”

Although the General Management Team held enormous power in the defense city, the amount of work they had to handle daily was diverse and staggering precisely because they held such power.

As such, becoming unnecessarily emotional and wasting time was a luxury that Yeon-ah, as the team leader, couldn’t afford, so she gave orders to the man waiting behind her and stepped into the battlefield of work.

Clop clop—

With the sound of heels echoing on metal, Yeon-ah and the man disappeared beyond the elevator.

And soon, as the elevator went up and the two people disappeared, only a deathly silence enveloped the silver-gray space.

Then, as the presence disappeared, the mana stones on the ceiling gradually dimmed their light and went out.

As the lighting began to disappear, darkness like night slowly descended on the silver-gray space, and in that darkness, the amber containing the ancestor emitted a soft light like a star.

This scenery that had continued every day continues again today.

In this underground where not even a single insect crawls, the city continues to roll like a cogwheel, leaving the still sleeping ancestor behind.

“……”

However.

As the same scenery had continued for so long, its breaking was but a moment.

“…Ah.”

The resonance of a voice breaking the silence, piercing through the present that had been the same every day.

And as that resonance began to subside.

Crack—

A crack appeared in the cocoon of the crouching girl.