Chapter 307

“Wait.”

Of course, no matter how impressive the equipment might be, the owner still had to carry out at least a minimum level of safety verification.

“But before you touch it, let’s run every appraisal skill we have first.”

At the sharp-looking hunter’s words, accompanied by the sight of his gloved palm, Haseong forgot for a moment that the other man was younger than him and stopped immediately without protest.

“Hmm...”

The silence lasted only briefly.

As though he were a genuine appraiser, Giryeo carefully examined the monster from head to toe. Before long, his gaze settled on one particular part of its body.

The fake appraiser’s conclusion came shortly afterward.

And it was concise.

That S-rank monster had a clear weakness.

Its wrists were poorly constructed.

So they should begin by burning through that area like a cutting torch.

After that, the hunt would become considerably easier.

“I understand.”

With the national hero’s upright reply serving as the signal, the dungeon was soon filled with fierce, violent noise.

Fwoooosh!

To be precise, the hero struck first.

When dealing with the rare type of monster whose temperament was moderate enough that it wouldn’t attack humans unprovoked, staking everything on the opening blow was only natural.

“——!”

An unfamiliar, piercing frequency burst through the chamber like ringing in the ears.

The white being—humanlike, yet unmistakably inhuman—shrieked and moved the instant the young man launched his preemptive strike.

Boom, boom, boom.

Perhaps because of its hard, segmented shell, which resembled the surface of a statue, the monster displayed no visible movement at its joints.

Instead, it attempted a ranged physical attack without moving from where it stood.

But how could a creature without tools, like a human, possibly fight at range?

The answer lay in the highly elastic material attached to its scalp.

“Its hair is the main weapon?”

Dozens of long strands split apart and lashed out like living whips.

The pure-white monster standing before them was an imposing 5.5 meters tall.

And with a frame that massive, there was no chance it was light.

Boom!

The thick synthetic hair smashed into the floor, sending debris scattering in every direction.

Jung Haseong ducked low, narrowly avoiding the strike, then attempted to attack the strands themselves.

But the creature’s shell was far more durable than he had expected.

The flames had definitely struck it head-on, yet they hadn’t even left a scorch mark.

The appraiser standing behind him had already pointed out the monster’s weak point, but even its wrist was expected to possess at least some degree of defensive strength.

Perhaps Haseong had concluded that simply spreading flames across a broad area wouldn’t generate enough concentrated heat to melt through it.

He adjusted the weapon in his hand and channeled mana into it.

Then, drawing on the superhuman physical ability unique to an S-rank hunter, he launched himself forward in an instant, his calves uncoiling like compressed springs.

“No point dragging this out. I’ll cut it off in one strike.”

The ruler of the 10th floor realized what was happening too late and attempted to stop humanity’s advance with a dazzling barrage of whip-like attacks.

But the hero deflected or avoided every single strike.

At times, he even sacrificed his shoulder in order to maintain his high-speed approach.

By now, he had grown used to the distorted surroundings enough to clearly sense the enemy’s flow of mana even under these conditions.

And then, using that heightened awareness, he cut through the tangled mass of the monster’s hair—

“Heugh!”

The national hero took several running steps and leapt high into the air.

Once he gained the right amount of height, he twisted his waist in midair and brought his weapon down with all his strength, aiming directly at the enemy’s weak point.

Like a high-performance laser cutter, the compressed heat traced a blazing straight line through the air along the blade.

The instant it struck the wrist, just as a certain appraiser had predicted, a crisp shattering sound rang out—distinctly different from the dull impact produced when attacking the other parts of its body.

“Did it cut through?”

Crack!

And that wasn’t all.

The moment one of the monster’s hands was severed, someone suddenly shouted from the rear.

“Jung Haseong, fall back!”

It was an order born partly from the appraiser’s trust in his companion.

As an experienced and highly skilled hunter, Jung Haseong didn’t waste time asking the irritating question, “Why?”

The moment he heard the command, he repositioned himself immediately.

The fire mage leapt once, putting an astonishing amount of distance between himself and the enemy.

And at that exact moment—

“—!!”

Once again, a sharp high-frequency sound filled the chamber.

It was the dungeon monster’s cry.

A clumsy imitation of human speech.

After losing its wrist, the creature began behaving abnormally.

Like a puppet whose most important string had suddenly been severed, the staggering monster emitted an intense light from the damaged area.

A light so bright it seemed capable of burning the eyes.

Jung Haseong, whose vision was already impaired, felt warmth and brightness spread across his closed eyelids.

“Destroying its wrist triggered a new attack pattern...?”

But before he could even assume a proper defensive stance, the situation was resolved in an instant.

The monster suddenly erupted in a burst of light.

It happened so quickly that even an S-rank hunter couldn’t fully process it in time.

And yet Kim Giryeo stopped it.

Kim Giryeo—

“Huh?”

But how in the world had that person blocked it?

Because of the visual penalty, Haseong’s eyes were closed.

Naturally, what he perceived of the event came in broken fragments.

“...?”

Even with his senses sharpened by the darkness—

The ability user before him concealed his presence so thoroughly that his movements were impossible to read.

And yet he had neutralized the monster’s attack with absurd ease.

“It felt like a tsunami had surged right up to my face, only to vanish like a mirage.”

For a moment, every hair on his body stood on end.

A long time ago, Jung Haseong had once participated in an experimental collaboration with several defense-type hunters.

But even the specialists he had met back then had been nothing like this.

The boss’s attack—

And not just any boss.

An S-rank monster equal to himself had launched that attack.

How could anyone absorb such an impact so silently?

“Hunter Kim, are you alright—?”

Overcome by a chilling sensation, the people’s hero briefly opened his eyes.

Even through his blurred vision, he could see that the man in the suit standing before him was unharmed.

So before the dizziness could worsen, he quickly shut his eyes again.

And thanks to that, Giryeo was able to avoid having Haseong realize that the performance he had just demonstrated came entirely from his equipment.

“I told you I’d help just once, didn’t I?”

Now that he had confirmed that the primitive sorcerer had closed his eyes again, it was time to proceed with the rest of the plan.

Ssssk.

The alien hunter’s new equipment.

[Midnight Gloves].

This manufactured item had undergone special modification and could also be called a ‘Memory’.

More importantly, the tool required neither casting time nor mana in order to activate.

It demanded only one thing.

“Of course, it registered successfully this time too!”

A spell saved in advance!

With every preparation complete, the reincarnated Archmage activated the glove’s function without a moment’s hesitation.

Boom!

Compared to this, the enemy’s clumsy attack from earlier looked like child’s play.

A laser fired with refined precision, compressing the full force of magical power into a single stream.

Crack! Rumble rumble rumble...

This was the true power of the modified gloves.

A tool that allowed even an incurable Alphaut, born without the ability to wield magic, to cast spells.

Of course, a storage circuit engraved into nothing more than fabric could never match the neurons of a living brain, so its limitations were obvious.

But by Earth’s standards, at least, it made possible a level of firepower that other F-ranks could never dream of producing on their own.

The Archmage destroyed the monster’s most troublesome part.

Its head.

As a result, the flickering Medusa-like hair was blasted away, meaning the creature could no longer perform its irritating ranged attacks.

“The functions really are excellent.”

Heh heh heh...

For the first time in quite a while, the blond alien radiated confidence, basking in the satisfaction of his brilliant achievement.

The creature’s only weak point—its wrist—had been successfully damaged, and cracks had now spread throughout its powerful body.

All that remained for the enemy was a miserable death.

“Jung Haseong! Resume the attack.”

“Ah, yes!”

Crackle!

The armor that had been so impossibly sturdy earlier now cracked and crumbled around the edges even under an ordinary explosion of flame.

Even so, as befitted an S-rank boss monster, the battle continued for some time.

But there was little hope left for a creature that had suddenly lost its head.

It flailed its massive remaining arm and exchanged several more blows with Haseong.

In the end, disaster overtook it.

A blast of flame magic struck its already-damaged neck, and its entire body shattered apart.

Sparkle!

“What is this light...?”

“This is the real reward.”

The 10th-floor boss’s HP finally reached zero.

Haseong realized it when a brilliant light burst somewhere beyond his closed vision.

This had to be the subjugation reward.

The certainty that he had finally overcome the tower’s last trial settled over him, and with it came a deep sense of relief.

Yes.

Relief.

“Wasn’t this a pretty decent ending?”

At the beginning of the dungeon, he had been deeply embarrassed by how badly he struggled against its special effects.

But now, after reaching the very end and defeating a total of seventeen bosses with his eyes closed, it felt like an {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} achievement he could genuinely be proud of.

“With results like this, I don’t think I’ll feel too guilty asking him to join the official team.”

A smile soon appeared on the young man’s lips.

“Finally...”

But just as he opened his eyes again, expecting the gate’s exit to appear, the top-ranked challenger was suddenly seized by an inexplicable feeling of unease.

“Hmm?”

His vision was still inverted.

Of course, based on the message that had appeared at the beginning of the trial, it made sense that the curse would remain until he actually left the tower.

But even so—

Why hadn’t an exit appeared?

Why hadn’t the automatic escape mechanism activated?

“Jung Haseong!”

It was just as Korea’s hero began to question the situation.

The first person to notice the anomaly on the 10th floor was the supporter standing to his left.

If the statue they had encountered had been a monster with accumulated raid data like the other bosses, its special ability would probably have been listed on the PIXY site like this.

[I Shall Be Reborn]

Gugugugu...

An ominous sound rose from the scattered debris.

The final boss of the Tower of a Hundred People had possessed an exterior as white as plaster, while its interior had been packed with a mysterious blue mineral—as though its blood had been reversed.

Now, among the shattered remains where those two colors had mixed together after its violent battle with Haseong, only the blue mineral suddenly began to melt and surge upward.

Viscous bluish blood oozed thickly between the white fragments like heavy liquid.

Worse, the substance rapidly began gathering in one place...

“Open your eyes! Jung Haseong, you need to see this with your own eyes if you want to dodge it!”

There wasn’t even time for an explanation.

The inner mass of the 10th-floor monster had transformed instantly into a long spear.

The ominous point of that spear turned toward—

The very person responsible for reducing the creature to this state.

And then the spear shot toward the hero.

“Huh!”

Only then did Haseong finally understand what his companion had meant.

“Magic!”

There was none.

The aura that an Awakener could detect through their sixth sense was completely absent from the spear.

So Haseong hurriedly opened his eyes.

But now a critical problem interfered with his otherwise clear eyesight.

“Keugh...?”

Whoosh!

That damned inverted-vision curse.

The top-ranked hunter had no choice but to roll in a random direction in order to avoid the spear’s charge.

Then something shocking happened.

The blue spear missed, twisted through the air with a whistling sound, and without slowing down, immediately flew again toward the enemy who still had his back turned.

“No way!”

In truth, the monster’s final desperate attack was not supposed to be particularly dangerous.

But when combined with the special environment of the [Tower of a Hundred People], the attack became an absurdly high-difficulty pattern.

• Infinite charge until hitting the target

• However, if consistent physical damage is dealt using epic-grade or higher weapons, the attack ends along with the dissolution of the hardened blood.

From the challenger’s perspective, the entire world was upside down.

How was he supposed to land a hit on a spear moving at such extreme speed?

“Impossible.”

At that moment, a scholar of magic completed his calculations.

The possibility of South Korea’s number-one-ranked hunter clearing this pattern alone was close to miraculous.

“Why, why is it... getting faster?!”

So—

“Before we entered, I bragged that survival was guaranteed as long as they had me. I can’t let an Archmage miscalculate something this simple and humiliate himself.”

The charging spear accelerated with every passing second.

Haseong desperately tried to keep up, but eventually chose the wrong direction in which to dodge.

He lost his balance completely and fell.

Then, at the exact instant his body hit the ground and he reflexively shut his eyes from the impact—

The 10th-floor boss’s final rampage ended.

Without sound.

Without warning.

• The “Target” mentioned here refers to the center of a single challenger’s body.

This was information that even Earth’s appraisers could have easily discovered.

But the multiple spear blades only sought the hunter’s blood.

They were nothing more than objects.

They had no reason to distinguish what the source of that blood looked like.

Thud!

CRAAACK-CRUNCH.

The spear that had descended from above pierced someone else’s skin—

Flesh made of water and keratin.

And with that, the trial came to an end.

Wuuuung...

At the same moment, the gate’s exit finally appeared.

The dungeon clear was now certain.

“What the—? I heard the Tower of a Hundred People was supposed to eject challengers automatically. Don’t tell me... Are they giving me extra time to collect loot because of the curse this time?”

As described earlier, the alien had used his own body to stop the resurrected monster’s charge.

He had even deliberately deactivated the Guardian centered on himself.

After all, the spear would only stop once it pierced something and successfully struck a target.

“Did it decide the center of a human body was the navel? Good thing it wasn’t the lungs.”

It was at that moment.

Even after achieving his primary objective of rescuing Haseong, Giryeo somehow looked dissatisfied.

“There was no stopping force, so the ground got completely torn up...”

Compared to higher-ranked Awakened, his physical strength was practically nonexistent.

During the process of stopping the spear, he had been pushed backward a full seven meters.

Giryeo glanced at the long trail of destruction carved across the dungeon floor and twisted his lips into a crooked expression.

“If I were in my prime, I could have cleared this trial in a far more elegant way.”

Why did someone who had mastered all kinds of advanced magical knowledge have to resort to such barbaric methods every single time?

The plan had succeeded.

Yet the more he thought about it, the less satisfied he became.

And in that moment, he couldn’t help recalling all the emotions Jung Haseong had experienced throughout the dungeon raid.

“...Somehow, lately, more and more...”

He was rapidly growing sick of his miserable powerlessness, trapped in the useless position of an F-rank.

Just how much longer was he supposed to live like this?

He felt humiliated.

And irritated.