Junhyuk had done everything he could. After the civilians were rescued, it was time to evacuate them, so he returned to Guardians HQ with the rest of the powered people.

Junhyuk wanted to be briefed on what had happened, so he went straight to the meeting room. After the monster areas were destroyed, the countries’ delegates all returned to their own countries. He entered the meeting room with Sarang and Lucy. Eunseo and Brigadier Johnson were already there.

Eunseo spoke up first.

“You’ve done well.”

“I just did my job.”

“The government will compensate you for your work.”

Junhyuk wasn’t interested in that. He was worried about more dragons showing up. Looking at Lucy, he asked, “What about the casualties?”

Lucy sighed and answered, “One expert activated a new power. Seven novices became experts. Eight experts and thirty-seven novices died.”

Kalgroan hadn’t targeted the novices and experts, but they were rather weak in comparison. All powered people were wearing armor made out of monster materials, but novices and experts had rather low health.

Their forces had been hit hard. Thirty percent of them had died. Even so, Junhyuk had a new champion and seven more experts to train.

Sighing heavily, he said, “We should compensate the families of the dead ones. We hadn’t really trained much when the S-ranked monster showed up.”

Johnson said, “The new dimensional tear brought a dragon, a monster more powerful than any we’ve faced before. So, my country is sending the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet to be stationed in South Korea.”

The American military was equipped with monster decomposition liquid, and that might help, but that was only in theory.

A-ranked monsters couldn’t be killed with decomposition liquid, and dragons were S-ranked existences. In essence, the American fleet wouldn’t be much help, but the Americans could help with rescue and evacuation procedures, so they would make a difference.

With that covered, Junhyuk would be able to fight without worrying about the civilians around him.

Sighing, he said, “I’m not sure if South Korea will be the only place with dragons.”

The managers could send dragons to any country in the world. Johnson grimaced at the statement.

“We’ll develop dragon-hunting weapons from the resources we gathered today.”

Junhyuk replied, “I’ll help with anything you need.”

“Thanks for the offer.”

Junhyuk turned to Eunseo and said, “I’ll go meet the new champion and experts.”

“Sure. I’ll take care of the aftermath.”

After Junhyuk walked out with Lucy and Sarang, he got a call through his communication orb.

“Are you still alive? Have you killed the dragon?”

Looking at Gongon, Junhyuk nodded heavily.

“We did.”

“You’ve officially killed a warm-blooded dragon,” Gongon said astonished, but Junhyuk shook his head.

“I don’t want to talk about it. I almost died.”

“But you killed the dragon?”

“I did.”

“What was the dragon’s name?”

“Kalgroan. He said he’d been imprisoned by the managers for hundreds of years.”

“Kalgroan? The t.i.tle of Kal means that he was a powerful dragon. He was imprisoned by the managers?”

“Right. He said he was hunted down.”

“Hunted?!”

Gongon looked both worried and furious, and Junhyuk said, “Kalgroan wasn’t a hero, so I don’t know anything else about him aside from him saying that he was imprisoned for hundreds of years.”

“Yeah? I can look into his past.”

“If possible, find out how many dragons have been imprisoned by the managers. I want to know that.”

“Sure. I’ll find out.”

Junhyuk smiled and asked, “Do you know of anything that can pierce dragon scales?”

Gongon shook his head and answered, “Other dragons can do it, but the dragon attacking has to do so at great speed.”

“Really?”

Humans would use the dead dragon’s body to craft weapons that would be able to kill dragons, and Elise would also come up with something to increase speed.

Junhyuk disconnected with Gongon and headed to the training facility. The newly powered-up people were already there.

Kushuma, from India, had become a champion. Junhyuk looked at the experts. There were six of them standing in front of him.

He turned to Lucy and asked, “Where’s the seventh expert?”

Lucy c.o.c.ked her head and said, “I’m the seventh.”

“You?!”

Junhyuk was a little surprised by the turn of events, and Lucy continued, “My new power can help us.”

“What is it?”

“I can debuff and nullify an enemy’s power.”

“Debuff a power?”

“I can make it weaker. It’s the only reason I survived back there.”

Lucy had almost been killed. She had risked her life in that battle, which had enabled her to acquire a new power, a power that was very useful.

Junhyuk said, “The number of casualties was high, but we have a new group of higher-tier powered. We’ll do better next time.” Turning to Lucy, he added, “Gather all the data from the battle and come up with a new strategy.”

“Yes, sir!”

“And please, work harder, everyone.”

People who had trained with him that morning had died, so everyone was tense. He bid them goodbye and went to see Elise. The dragon’s corpse was resting on her yard.

Elise walked toward him. An iron soldier was working as her a.s.sistant. It was holding a scale.

“How’s the body?”

“I’ve just started examining it.”

She would dissect the corpse and research it. It was a huge task.

“I can’t do this by myself, so I called for your underlings at GST.”

“How about calling people from Guardians?”

“I’ve done that already. We’ll all work together on it.”

“Right.”

Junhyuk told her about his conversation with Gongon.

“Dragon scales can be pierced by dragon claws.”

“Yeah?”

Elise called Gongon herself, and they talked using heavy technical jargon.

“What are they talking about?” he asked Sarang.

“They are using magitek words.”

“That’s not Korean, right?”

“There’s no Korean equivalent, no.”

Junhyuk sighed and shook his head. Elise kept talking to Gongon for a long while, pacing constantly. Suddenly, she beckoned him over.

Everyone followed Elise to her lab. She was still talking to Gongon when she turned to Junhyuk.

“You should listen to Gongon.”

Gongon appeared on a monitor. He looked incredibly frustrated.

“I didn’t want to do this, but I must tell you how to kill a dragon. Elise can use magitek to kill dragons.”

“How?”

“By crafting weapons from the dragon’s bones. That’s your best bet. It only requires a few crafting techniques, so it’s the simplest way.” Gongon wrote a rune formation across the air and continued, “Craft weapons out of the bones with a sharpness spell. That way, you’ll be able to pierce the scales. But, you’ll need to figure out how to nullify the dragon’s force field on your own.”

After some thought, Junhyuk said, “We got a new expert, and her power debuffs and nullifies an an enemy’s power. Would she be able to dispel a dragon’s force field?”

“I have to see the power first, but in theory, it’s possible.”

Junhyuk nodded, and Gongon thought of something else then, “Do you have a lot of powered people?”

“Not many, but we have some.”

“Research their powers first. They might hold more than they know.”

“You mean that they might have dormant powers?”

“In the same way that dragons can cast magic with scrolls.”

It would be revolutionary if humans had dormant powers. Ensnaring and debuff powers could be extremely useful.

Junhyuk turned to Elise, and she shook her head.

“I am not capable of figuring that out right now. We’ll probably have to use the dimensional merchant for that.”

Junhyuk agreed, “Maybe we can find powers that can only be used on Earth.”

There was a strength difference between dimensional powers and powers that would work only on Earth. He didn’t have the gold for the merchant now, but he was willing to invest on anything that helped them fight S-ranked monsters.

He smiled at Gongon and said, “Thanks. I think we’ll be able to handle dragons now.”

Gongon was very happy to hear that from him.

“Don’t expect too much. You’ll get another dragon sooner than you expect.”

“You shouldn’t talk that way.”

Gongon covered his mouth with his claw and said, “Sorry. The things we say become reality. You’re right.”

Junhyuk sighed.

“We’ll do our best in our preparations. We know managers can hunt them, so we’ll face more dragons.”

There would still be collateral damage from the battles, but Junhyuk was thinking he could kill them once they showed up.

Gongon said, “It’s a problem that the managers have hunted dragons. We’ll run our own investigation into the matter.”

The dragons would file an official complaint against the managers, which would help.

“Thanks.”