In one month, the gates are finally going to manifest since the amount of mana in the atmosphere is increasing as the days pass.
When I was still on Earth, we readers weren't told how mana worked in the series, but since I had nothing better to do, I began researching how mana behaved.
The way how mana is being used in this series is that when mana isn't being used by someone while also roaming through the atmosphere, it will create a rift in space and connect this world with another which in turn creates a gate.
Of course, the reason why a rift had been created in the first place is because of the Monarchs. Though other entities and albeit weaker than the Monarchs, the entities can also create rifts.
If I were to estimate how much mana the entities besides the strongest Monarchs would need to create a rift, the lowest to mid-ranked Monarchs would need to expend half or more of their mana.
But if we're talking about the stronger Monarchs, they wouldn't even need to use their mana to create a rift since their auta and presence alone would be enough.
This is of course all just a hypothesis since I haven't yet met a Monarch myself.
I can manipulate space to create a rift like the entities and Monarchs, but as stated before, I won't be as to track them down.
When I do meet a Monarch, I will extract the information out of them and if I can, I will find their real body and destroy them with their souls so they can't be reborn anew.
Furthermore, even if I already have complete domination over magic and mana, the amount of time it would take to eradicate all the mana on Earth right now would take years.
I can probably eradicate all the mana in South Korea in due time, but if I do that when all gates emerge, people would start trying to enter this place since it would be a monster-free region and I don't want that.
And if I did do that, I would immediately try to control the minds of all the awakened hunters so that they would defend the whole of South Korea.
Since I don't want that to happen though, I can just make clones of myself and change how they look to defend the country while I wait.
*Sigh~
Heaving out a loud sigh and taking off my hat so that I could scratch the top of my head, I felt a very weak slap on my shoulder blades.
*Slap!
"Ow! Dude, why is your back so hard? It felt like I just slapped someone with iron skin!"
"First, that was my shoulder blades, and two, why did you even try that when you should already know how tough my skin is?"
"Because - Well, it looked like something was troubling your mind so I thought I should wake you up from your slumber."
". . . really?"
"I mean, are you troubled because of that freshman you met the-"
Before he could say anything else, I grabbed the back of his neck and lifted him off the ground like I would a newborn kitten.
"Hey, put me down this instant!"
Lifting him a little higher and doing what I was told by my senior who was only a couple of months older than me, I dropped him.
With him falling on his butt since he didn't expect to be let go of so suddenly, the people who were passing by us kept staring at him.
Now that he was embarrassed about what I had - I mean what he had done, he slowly got up and glared into my black eyes.
Noticing that he was about to walk away, I softly tapped his shoulder and slid my hand into his pocket, giving him the latest phone model.
"Since I've damaged your reputation out in public while wearing the school uniform, I should of course compensate you for your trouble."
"What . . . ? Wait! How did you even have the money to get me this phone when I know you're not working? And why did you do that to me?"
"That's a little secret of mine that you'll never find out and I know you have a humiliation kink so I thought you would be happy about this."
"I do have that, but I don't want my reputation to be ruined while in uniform! I want to be humiliated by my friends, like you . . . alone."
"Are you sure about that? Anyway, I don't swing that way so you should stop with that."
"Yes, I'm sure about that. But how did you even hear me say that last part? I was whispering. Well, you should be conscious of how others feel when doing this to the other club members."
"Yeah, yeah . . ."
Barely nodding my head at what he said, I erased the memories of the people who saw him fall and placed my elbow on his shoulder.
Arching my back since he was shorter than me, I said, "I guess I should, Ye-jun."
Ye-jun tried to shove my elbow off of his shoulder since I was heavy but he ultimately failed as he kept looking at his new phone.
With him still ogling at the phone I gave him, he suggested that we go eat since we didn't even eat lunch because of the track field.
"You're paying for the food since it seems you have the money to purchase yourself 2 phones."
Hearing him, I swiped the phone out of his hands and began dangling it above his head. "Just because I can buy something doesn't mean I have the money."
"That doesn't make sense though?"
"Huh?"
"Ah- I'm sorry, can I have it back!"
"I'm just joshing with you. I'm paying, now here's the phone."
Giving the phone back to him and thinking that I should stop doing this to every one of my friends, I thought, 'I mean, there are 2 very special individuals who aren't safe from my teasing; Cha and Sung.'