Chapter 305

Even as I'm struggling like this, the person beside me suddenly adjusts their grip on their weapon—without so much as staggering—and takes a couple of steps forward before hurling the spear.

What the hell is this? The real problem isn't the gatekeeper of the Tower of a Hundred People.

Isn't the real monster actually that person over there?

—Gurrrrrrr...!

When the hunter beside him successfully landed an attack in the intended direction, Haseong parted his lips and held his breath for a moment.

In truth, all the other man had done was draw a sword and throw it. But to Haseong, the feat performed by the hunter named Kim Giryeo looked like the work of a master who had overcome the dungeon's curse and adapted to his distorted senses in a matter of seconds.

Even thinking back on it, it was hard to believe.

The sky had become the ground. And yet, in this cursed state, where even turning your head toward a sound only made matters worse, he had still managed to throw his weapon and hit the target!

With those sharp, piercing eyes, he had clearly distinguished up from down and left from right. Haseong couldn't help wondering what on earth was going on inside that hunter's head.

I still... can't even take a proper step because of this nausea...!

Haseong panted heavily, struggling to suppress the overwhelming sense of disorientation. But no matter how much time passed, he couldn't even begin to adjust to his inverted vision. In this state, accurately grasping the true layout of the space was nearly impossible.

As a result, even a simple attack from the man beside him seemed more extraordinary with every passing second.

"H, Hunter... Hunter-nim. Don't tell me, does Hunter Kim actually know how to protect himself from a dungeon curse...?"

Of course, the highest-ranked hunter present was capable of thinking for himself, so by the time the [Iron Toad] had been flipped onto its back and neutralized, a perfectly reasonable question had finally occurred to him.

"...No?"

The alien denied it without so much as drawing breath.

"...You're saying no?"

"Ah, even I can't repel an effect imposed by a dungeon. Haseong, you know there's never been a case like that anywhere in the world, right?"

Naturally, attention was bound to gather around someone who accomplished something no one else on Earth had ever done. That was why Kim Giryeo had felt the need to conceal his absolute immunity to status effects. But when the disciple who had entered the gate with him suddenly began getting battered by that frog-like beast, he panicked and accidentally revealed that he was completely unaffected.

"Well, I already came up with that whole 'awakening attribute' story for Kang Changho, and he's Korean too, so word about my resistance will probably spread everywhere sooner or later anyway."

But even in a crisis like this, revealing the entire truth...

No matter how many times he considered it, explaining an ability that clearly exceeded the limits of modern humanity on Earth still seemed far too dangerous.

So Giryeo hastily invented an excuse for why he hadn't lost his balance.

"Jung Haseong. A curse imposed by a gate is something you have to endure on your own."

If you start coughing up blood, use a healing potion. If you lose your hearing, accept it and keep going.

Kim Giryeo claimed that he, too, was currently suffering from reversed vision. Hearing his firm declaration that they simply had to push through it without complaint, Haseong finally responded.

"What did you say?"

The young man known as a hero drew his brows into a deep frown.

It was the same hardened expression Jung Haseong had worn a year ago when he drew the Sunset Sword behind the Hunter Association building and lashed out in anger.

"Huh? Is he about to start another sword dance?"

Giryeo's shoulders stiffened as the memory suddenly resurfaced. But contrary to his fears, Haseong wasn't making that face out of anger or irritation.

"My vision is spinning so badly that just facing you right now is exhausting... How is anyone supposed to endure something like this and overcome it...?"

Everything felt uncertain.

Thanks to Giryeo's intervention, the boss was currently neutralized.

But what if the first-floor toad didn't die from [Hydra] alone?

No, what if it did?

Then the trial on the next floor would begin immediately, and there was no way he could adjust to the reversed vision in such a short amount of time.

"Keugh..."

Jung Haseong rose to his feet, clutching the area above one eye. Then, somehow, he tried to activate his skill properly and strike the enemy.

But.

"Greuk!"

Swoosh.

The flames he finally managed to conjure shot far past the spot where the monster lay.

The image reaching his eyes was inverted as an aftereffect. Although his mind clearly understood that the toad was lying on the ground, the human brain could be surprisingly gullible. Once his eyes registered the ceiling as being below him, his body readily accepted that false information as reality.

"Jung Haseong!"

As the black-haired man writhed in discomfort, the Archmage, who had been quietly observing him, finally spoke.

"If the visual distortion is really that difficult to adjust to, I told you. Just close your eyes."

But to a mammal whose species had survived for hundreds of millions of years without ever knowing the miracle of mana, those words sounded almost cruel.

"If I close my eyes completely, it'll be hard to determine where the enemy is."

"Sense it through mana."

"That kind of method only works when you're trying to detect an Awakened person moving around the corner of a curved hallway. Using it against an opponent moving at A-rank speed right in front of me is almost impossible..."

"Then sense the direction of the attack when it hits your body and cast your spell that way."

"That sounds like the same thing to me."

Tremble tremble.

Jung Haseong gritted his teeth against the overwhelming dizziness and forced himself to raise his head. Gripping the Sunset Sword—the only weapon capable of withstanding his flames—he spoke firmly.

"I'm not like Hunter Kim. My senses aren't that sharp. My reactions are incredibly slow. Honestly, I never expected to become this disoriented just because my vision got messed up."

"Hmm."

"If I try to counterattack recklessly right now, I'm definitely going to misjudge the skill's range..."

His voice trailed off, but it wasn't difficult to guess what he had intended to say.

"In short, you're afraid you'll roast the challenger who came in here with you?"

However, this body was still nothing more than an unremarkable F-rank vessel. Even if Giryeo wanted to help, there was only so much he could do.

"Didn't I make it clear before entering this gate that I'd only be providing support?"

"Ah...!"

There was nothing to gain from suddenly exposing himself as a fraud here.

So, after quickly running the numbers in his head, Giryeo offered a more practical solution.

"Jung Haseong."

This gate was classified overall as A-rank difficulty. Therefore, it was unlikely that one of the country's top five hunters would die here. As long as Jung Haseong—the strongest person present—didn't end up harming his own companions, this was still a battle worth taking on.

"You know that skill I've been explaining to you over and over in every class lately?"

"...Yes."

"The one where you ignite the flames as close to your body as possible so they can function as a kind of armor."

"Yes."

"Then why don't you use this opportunity to practice it? I know this is sudden, but now that I think about it, the Tower of a Hundred People is actually pretty decent for field training."

In Jung Haseong's distorted vision, the blond man appeared to be hanging upside down from the ceiling as he continued explaining.

"An A-rank boss is strong enough to keep you properly on edge. On top of that, the tower's structure forces you into one uninterrupted battle after another."

"Yes?"

"This should make it easier to get a feel for it."

Using the Tower of a Hundred People—something others regarded as a symbol of terror—as nothing more than a training ground for practicing a skill...

"Jung Haseong, the reason you're hesitating right now is because you're afraid of burning me, isn't it?"

"..."

"But if you properly master the skill I've taught you, you'll eventually be able to control its effective range to within one centimeter of your body. This is all part of reaching that point."

Then his overflowing mana would no longer overwhelm the weak indiscriminately. Instead, it could simply melt the blades of any reckless fool who approached with the intent to harm him.

That was the completed form of this particular attribute.

Giryeo had recently predicted during class that the mammal before him would struggle to reach that level. On the other hand, he had never considered it entirely impossible.

"In times when disasters are so common, it feels a little strange saying this to someone born around the same time as me, but..."

Jung Haseong had once, in the past, briefly shown a glimpse of that possibility.

"It's true that awakening something often requires hardship and stress."

More precisely, it had happened around the time he got into a fight with an Awakened person on a sandy beach in Incheon. That black-haired primitive mage had managed to ignite his flames even when the distance between himself and his opponent had shrunk to nearly ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) zero.

"Remember when you fought Hunter Kang Changho?"

"Yes."

"I've told you this again and again, but I'm not saying you should do exactly what you did back then. If you throw yourself completely into your own attack range like that again, you'll just end up roasting yourself."

Crawl.

At that moment, the grotesque otherworldly creature, still lying upside down, inflated its vocal sac.

Recognizing that the enemy was preparing to attack, Giryeo gave Jung Haseong an order.

"What I'm telling you to do is use your skills as close to your own body as possible. So just close the distance and beat it down at point-blank range! Can you do that?"

Could he do it?

With a high-level magical beast growling right in front of him, wasn't this the kind of situation where he had no choice but to make himself do it?

"I, I'll try."

The highest-ranked Hunter, despite sensing how unreasonable his tutor's demand was, decided to follow it for the time being.

Like the crazed alien sorcerers who would light fires underwater, he wrapped himself in flames.

Then, maintaining the spell as both weapon and armor, he charged at the enemy.

As expected, trying to catch a monster while keeping both eyes closed was anything but easy.

"Ugh!"

Of course, even with his eyes open, the disadvantage was hardly any better.

—Jump.

The moment a true powerhouse with S-rank mana began to move, the iron toad hastily abandoned the sonic attack it had been preparing, flipped itself upright in panic, and fled.

Time passed.

Prolonged exposure to the relentless poison coating [Hydra]'s blade finally overwhelmed the first-floor Trial, and fortunately, the creature died and vanished.

Swoosh.

Judging from the sound, it seemed the wielder of the epic weapon had retrieved it by pulling the blade from the monster's corpse.

"Somehow, it feels like spatial teleportation is about to start."

But what did it matter if it did?

"Ah, so it wasn't just a feeling."

The battle on the second floor began.

Jung Haseong briefly opened his tightly shut eyes. However, the newly appeared trial of the next floor turned out to be even more troublesome.

"That color looks familiar... Ah, damn it! It's another monster I've encountered before. That's a [Servant of Evil], the kind that usually appears in island regions..."

What appeared was a small monster no larger than an adult's palm.

"And there are three of them?"

Jung Haseong stepped into the center of the room and attempted a wide-area attack.

Of course, after everything that had gone wrong so far, expecting the opening strike to work perfectly would have been wishful thinking.

Soon enough, the hunter once hailed as the greatest in South Korea found himself being helplessly toyed with by the swift, nimble movements of three tiny monsters.

"It's useless. Whether I open these damn eyes or keep them shut!"

After all that training, how could this be happening...?

And how could he be struggling this badly inside a gate he had once cleared entirely on his own?

Grand Prize, Excellence Award, First Priority, First Place.

Throughout his life, Jung Haseong had constantly been praised for being exceptional.

That only made his present situation even more humiliating.

"Before entering the tower, I even bragged that I could handle everything by myself now."

Even though he was a fully grown adult, he felt so ashamed that he wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear.

Yet whether he understood those feelings or not, the teacher standing somewhere in the room began calmly advising him to use his skill properly unless he wanted to be hit by the enemy.

Perhaps because his eyes were closed, the hunter's voice sounded colder than usual today.