From Jung Haseong and Seo Esther's perspective, it was as if the sleek silhouette of the awakened one disappeared and suddenly a gray bear popped out instead. Soon after, the 5-rank hunters faced off.
And at that mont, the alien sitting on the ground thought.
***
Oh my god. I wasn't expecting anything, but to think the other 5-rank side would be the first to co help.
“F*ck, I’m alive!”
I cheered inwardly. To be honest, right up until they arrived, things here had been an utter ss on repeat. Since Enzo couldn’t even focus properly due to the poisoning and serious injuries, we were barely dodging the enemy’s attacks through desperate struggles—like writhing bodies clinging to life.
I definitely thought I would end up as a Homo sapiens grill.
Heheheuk.
And around this ti, it seed the hunters who had shown up also noticed the condition of my leg...
“Hunter Kim!”
Haseong imdiately provided support for , as I could no longer move properly. Two spells hit the giant wearing the bone mask with perfect accuracy.
“—!”
Boom, boom, boom!
In an instant, blue flas burst forth. Enzo, still not fully in his right mind, couldn’t avoid the explosion and was weakly thrown deep into the hallway.
“Gryeo-soi!”
“Are you okay!”
Co to think of it, in my previous life, I used to scoff at those weakling mages who always clung together, thinking how pathetic they were. But now that I’ve beco the weak one myself, I realize—there really is no strategy more essential than sticking together.
“The room where that genuine 5-rank was fighting had two so-called beasts. How did they manage to defeat all of them and make it this far?”
Since one of my legs had been charred, I hopped on one foot as I hurried over to my acquaintances. They had stepped out of the room and onto the corridor to support . And in the process, as I got closer to Jung Haseong, I naturally noticed it.
“Aha.”
That the [Sunset Sword] held in the hero’s right hand was noticeably drained.
“You must be the culprit!”
Due to his physical structure, the black-haired man couldn’t hear or speak Alphaurm, so he couldn’t use the tool on his own. Therefore, if the cylinder’s magic had vanished, it ant—without a doubt—it had been used via the automatic function.
I was involved in the developnt of the Ego Sword as the Chief Mage, so I have a rough idea of its structure. That model is the automatic counterattack type... was it the lockdown mode?
The problem is that this spell is nothing more than a minimal safeguard—like a seatbelt in a car. Unlike the magic missile that reduced Brooklyn Morgan to nothingness, it can never actually end the opponent’s life.
“The two fake beasts are still alive.”
Still, the fact that my acquaintances mistook the automatic counterattack for petrification and didn’t carelessly touch the enemies but ca straight up instead... was a relief in so many ways.
“At least they didn’t break the lockdown just to see it through to the end.”
Anyway, thank goodness a similar kind of magic actually exists on Earth too.
“Eek! Oh my god. Gryeo-soi, your leg...! And your cheek too!”
I reached them with a limping hop and quickly braced my hand against the nearby cave wall. And in that unstable position, with my weight awkwardly shifted, I instinctively clutched my head for a brief mont.
“Hunter Jung Haseong.”
No matter how many tis I thought it over, this still seed like the best way to handle the current situation.
“Hunter And Seo Esther.”
“Y, yes?”
I looked at the Magic Tower representative, who was pulling out a healing potion, and got straight to the point.
“Forget all that for now—let’s just kill the monsters we see back there imdiately!”
“Yes?”
“Th, that one? The... flower?”
“It’s not a plant. It’s more like a tough chunk of at. Anyway, I’ll do whatever I can about the barrier nearby.”
If this space triggers a dungeon break, that creature will instantly evolve beyond the standard A-rank classification into a beast tied to a special reward table. They’re trying to use unsuspecting civilians from other countries as nutrient fluid for profit. Realizing that truth, it was hard to just let the culprit right in front of go unpunished.
Therefore,
“That boss might be the reason the beasts illegally entered the country. I’ll explain everything in detail later. For now, just help get close to the barrier. I only need three minutes!”
As I urgently explained, the two veteran hunters quickly caught on.
“I understand.”
“So basically, you’re asking us to keep that beast the size of Namsan Mountain pinned down, right?”
Dyed yellow hair. Sambagean eyes. And that rough apricot-colored skin, clearly showing a lack of any interest in self-care.
I now understand that all those traits are ones that make it hard to earn trust in Korea.
“Screw it, let’s do this!”
“But from what I can see, it looks like Hunter Kim has already taken care of everything....”
Why did Kim Gryeo have his own appearance so much when he was alive? As it stands now, the hunters who ca to save seed to find a sense of reliability—or even gratitude—in this blond-haired look.
“What if I actually were a spy working with that organization?”
Otherwise, they wouldn’t just raise their weapons blindly based on soone else’s words.
“Swish.
“Hmm?”
“Huh..!?”
It was at that mont. Just as the atmosphere seed to be regaining a bit of energy, it was suddenly swallowed by silence.
“That.”
In the distance, the man who had been blown down the hallway thick with the stench of the dank cave began to stagger to his feet. Jung Haseong’s explosion magic—powerful enough to reduce ordinary matter to ashes—had hit him head-on not once, but twice. And yet, aside from his clothing being a bit torn, there wasn’t much visible damage. But the truth: I wasn’t the only reason we were suddenly struck speechless.
“Whoosh.
His neck. His ribs. And so minor burns on the skin, among other things.
Enzo’s awakened body slowly began healing all his injuries one by one.
“What the—? Did he sneak a potion while I wasn’t looking...?”
“No, Hunter Seo. I was watching the whole ti—there was no chance for that.”
Flesh was regenerating. The primitive sorcerers were briefly puzzled by this phenonon, but the quiet atmosphere was imdiately broken by the words I spoke.
“He used Patch!”
Haseong and Esther heard the words and turned their heads.
“He had an item hidden inside his clothes from the start—one that periodically restores damage and magic power.”
“Ah!”
“Heuk.”
“There’s nothing better for mid-battle use, so of course it costs dozens of tis more than a potion—and yet he’s plastered on like it’s nothing....”
It took only a few seconds for their expressions to be overtaken by shock.
“But I guess the rchant who sold him the item didn’t ntion this—if you overuse it even a little, it hits the limit imdiately!”
To think that a high-grade recovery item exists in a non-liquid form. For a mont, I almost felt envious—but considering the evolutionary stage of Earthlings, this is actually our stroke of luck.
“Maybe because of his heavier weight he can hold out a bit longer than average, but even so, I don’t think he has more than a few minutes left now.”
Using future energy like that gives you an edge in short-term battles. But the mont you hit the limit, all use of recovery items is instantly prohibited.
“...”
Esther, standing beside , was muttering bitterly that this must be why the beasts from other floors had been able to use skills endlessly—and it was at that very mont.
“I’ve been confused about sothing for a while now...”
The man in the leather outfit—his neck now fully healed—spoke up.
“It seems that the one who killed that woman was indeed from 33Aw...”
From beginning to end, there wasn’t a single part of that sentence that didn’t bother .
“But what’s the point in digging into sothing like that? I’ve already committed to the whole beast concept—might as well stay in character and not even talk to humans.
But whether it was fortunate or unfortunate,
the situation changed drastically before Korea’s top two-ranked hunters could even focus on the suspicious number “33.”
“Hahaha.
Kliek.
As he heavily stepped forward with his right foot, a chilling static charge surged through the air—so intense that the dry plants instantly stood upright.
“What—the was I the only one fooled? Life’s a waste and not even that fun, after all.
It was around the ti when I thought I heard a tick.
“Ugh!”
“Hunter Kim!”
It was a speed far too fast for the eye to follow. Enzo, apparently having stashed away the spear he’d used before losing consciousness, retrieved it from his item box in an instant and aid himself once more. With the weapon now firmly in his grasp, he charged head-on—and of course, the first target he went for was the softest-bodied alien among us.
“Get off!”
“This!”
“Wait, maybe it’s just , but... from the nose-canceling earpiece, I could’ve sworn that guy’s English pronunciation sounded just like—”
Enzo had almost fully recovered. He began unleashing electricity like a madman, as if he truly were a thunder god who had fallen straight from a temple in the sky. Seo Esther pulled back, while Jung Haseong tried to blast the enemy away with an explosion.
We had the numbers on our side. But the problem was that my previous defenders of Korea weren’t exactly in top condition.
“Damn it, of course. The healing agents found on Earth are still just cheap versions by Alphaurm standards!”
And then, the worst-case scenario among all possible outcos unfolded. I had hoped that stashing him in poison would at least help a little. But Fritz Enzo, the awakened one, overwheld two 5-rank hunters by all himself. His accomplishnts were well-equipped too, but Enzo seed to be relying on magic for superior to theirs—as if he’d sold his house and poured all the money into this.
“Watching him fight properly, I get it now...”
In a capitalist society, money is practically the sa as power—but I never thought the day would co when the gap in wealth would manifest so blatantly as raw physical force.
“Even without the artifacts, he was a sorcerer on par with Morgan from the very beginning.”
Fzzzzzt!
That particular power is especially tricky to handle. Jung Haseong’s flas contain a lot of magic that spreads to a ridiculous degree, can surprisingly sway by the wind, and most of all, are a delicate type of attribute that makes it cumberso to concentrate power into a single point. Yet, Enzo handled this power as delicately as his own fingertips, burning the enemies before him—Jung Haseong and Esther.
“This is horrible.”
Why didn’t I think of this from the start? They probably knew, too, that the Patch—constantly restoring their strength—was harmful to the body. And yet, they didn’t hesitate to launch a full-scale battle against us. There must have been a reason.
“So this is how horrible a body without mana can be...”
Damn.
“Co to think of it, where are the beasts Jung Haseong locked down? One of those two definitely recovered the [Shrine of the Underworld]. And the last recorded use of that item was... outside...”
Even in the helplessness that threatened to send into a panic, I forced myself to think.
“Should I try to sohow steal the Shroud back from the immobilized criminals? No, but while I’m hobbling around with this pathetic physical ability, they’d definitely...”
And just as I was about to suggest to these temporary teammates that we fall back—since no matter how I turned it over in my head, there was no answer—
“Swoosh.
It was right around that mont. Suddenly, I felt like one of my vision had gotten a little brighter.
“Huh.”
The sun.
“Huh?”
An artificial sun, conjured by magic, had risen from sowhere. And in this dungeon, every ti the ceiling’s appearance changes, that phenonon always follows.
“What.
“... Not the ti.
“Leave the monsters that followed...”
“...That way?...Is it coming?
“Go straight...!
The chambered sections of the ant nest-like dungeon shifted again. The first floor’s room rotated to the second, the second to the third, and the third back to the first. In short, the entire space had shifted one step over—like a revolver cylinder clicking into place. But co to think of it, this gate was only classified as A-rank in terms of danger, and a whole crowd of elite hunters had been waiting right outside the entrance.
“Ah!”
Given the flow of ti, that side would now be coming through the first-floor chamber.
“Catch them!”
“Get them first!”
“Oh, it’s the Beast!”
The top awakened beings of South Korea had arrived. And leading their charge, as expected, was soone wielding the [Searcher].
“Kim Gryeo-ssi...”
“Seonwoo Yeon-ssi...”
Thanks to leaving her outside, all the hunters had been able to navigate the web-like, complex first-floor section at high speed. In addition, based on predictions, they had vanished, it ant—but without a doubt—the weapon now firmly, they should have reached the room within the burrow and started looking for the crawlspace leading down.
“The dungeon’s ti zone changed before they even finished clearing the room.”
Swoosh!
What followed was a scene even Enzo, the beast himself, seed to not have anticipated.
“?!”
The governnt agent who had arrived as support threw an item the mont she appeared on that floor. When the orb she tossed shattered, the dungeon floor instantly turned so slippery that it was nearly impossible for anyone to stand—and Enzo’s massive fra suddenly tilted backward.
“Cover it!”
“Tie it up, tie it up!”
“Of course, the ‘friction coefficient’ is the sa for all ranks!
“That’s the kind of massive net you’d use to catch a whale. Oh, and it even cos with a mana-draining curse!”
Skills. Consumable items. Equipnt effects. and more. The Korean hunters took full advantage of the mont Enzo went down, unleashing every suppression tool they had. In an instant, Enzo Chano was wrapped up like a tightly bound cocoon. Whoever did it, they knew what they were doing—because seeing that vulnerable nape of his neck, a known weak spot for earth-style spectators, caught with an extra white cord? That was so clean, precise work.
“Hunter Kim Gryeo. Are you, are you okay?”
And when he turned his head.
“This ti I’m here to help you!”
A mammal with an expression impossible to read—sowhere between crying and laughing—greeted the alien.
User Comments
0 comments from readers