Chapter 323

From Jung Haseong and Seo Esther’s perspective, it was as though the sleek silhouette of an awakened one had vanished, only for a gray bear to suddenly appear in its place. Moments later, the 5-rank hunters faced off.

And at that moment, 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 {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} come help.

“F*ck, I’m alive!”

I cheered inwardly. To be honest, right up until they arrived, the situation had been one endless disaster. Enzo could barely focus because of the poison and his severe injuries, and we had only managed to evade the enemy’s attacks through sheer desperation, writhing and struggling like creatures clinging stubbornly to life.

I was certain I was going to end up as grilled Homo sapiens.

Heheheuk.

Around then, the hunters who had arrived seemed to notice the state of my leg as well...

“Hunter Kim!”

Haseong immediately moved to support me, since I could no longer move properly. Two spells struck the giant in the bone mask with perfect accuracy.

“—!”

Boom, boom, boom!

Blue flames erupted in an instant. Still not entirely in his right mind, Enzo failed to avoid the blast and was sent tumbling weakly down the corridor.

“Gryeo-soi!”

“Are you okay!”

Come to think of it, in my previous life, I used to scoff at weakling mages who always huddled together, wondering how they could possibly be so pathetic. But now that I was the weak one myself, I understood.

There really was 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 them both and make it all the way here?”

With one leg charred, I hurried toward my acquaintances by hopping on the other. They had stepped out of the room and into the corridor to support me. And as I drew closer to Jung Haseong, I naturally noticed something.

“Aha.”

The [Sunset Sword] in the hero’s right hand was conspicuously depleted.

“You must be the culprit!”

Because of his physical structure, the black-haired man could neither hear nor speak Alphaurm, which meant he couldn’t operate the tool himself. Therefore, if the cylinder’s magic had been depleted, there was only one possible explanation.

Its automatic function had activated.

I had been involved in developing the Ego Sword as the Chief Mage, so I had a rough understanding of its structure. That model was an automatic counterattack type... What was it called again? Lockdown mode?

The problem was that the spell amounted to little more than a minimum safety measure, like a seat belt in a car. Unlike the magic missile that had reduced Brooklyn Morgan to nothing, it could never actually finish off an opponent.

“The two fake beasts are still alive.”

Still, the fact that my acquaintances had mistaken the automatic counterattack for petrification, refrained from carelessly touching the enemies, and instead come straight up here...

That was a relief in more ways than one.

“At least they didn’t break the lockdown just to finish them off.”

Anyway, thank goodness a similar kind of magic actually existed on Earth.

“Eek! Oh my god. Gryeo-soi, your leg...! And your cheek too!”

I reached them in an awkward series of hops and quickly braced one hand against the nearby cave wall. With my balance unstable and my weight shifted awkwardly to one side, I instinctively clutched my head for a moment.

“Hunter Jung Haseong.”

No matter how many times I considered it, this still seemed like the best way to deal with the situation.

“And Hunter Seo Esther.”

“Y, yes?”

I looked at the Magic Tower representative, who was in the middle of pulling out a healing potion, and got straight to the point.

“Forget all that for now—let’s kill the monster back there immediately!”

“Yes?”

“Th, that one? The... flower?”

“It’s not a plant. It’s more like a tough lump of flesh. Anyway, I’ll do whatever I can about the barrier around it.”

If this place triggered a dungeon break, that creature would immediately evolve beyond the standard A-rank classification into a beast tied to a special reward table.

They intended to use unsuspecting civilians from another country as nutrient fluid for their own profit.

Now that I understood that, there was no way I could simply let the culprit standing right in front of me go unpunished.

Therefore,

“That boss might be the reason the beasts entered the country illegally. I’ll explain everything in detail later. For now, just help me get close to the barrier. I only need three minutes!”

At my urgent explanation, the two veteran hunters quickly grasped the situation.

“I understand.”

“So basically, you want us to keep that beast the size of Namsan Mountain pinned down, right?”

Dyed yellow hair. Sambagean eyes. And rough, apricot-colored skin that practically advertised a complete lack of interest in self-care.

I understood now.

Every one of those traits made it difficult to inspire 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 had Kim Gryeo hated his own appearance so much when he was alive?

As things stood, the hunters who had come to rescue me seemed to find something reassuring in this blond-haired appearance—perhaps even something that inspired gratitude.

“What if I actually were a spy working with that organization?”

Otherwise, they wouldn’t have raised their weapons so readily based solely on someone else’s word.

Swish.

“Hmm?”

“Huh..!?”

It happened at that very moment.

Just as the atmosphere seemed to be recovering a little of its energy, silence suddenly swallowed it whole.

“That.”

Far down the corridor, amid the heavy stench of the damp cave, the man who had been blasted away began staggering back to his feet.

Jung Haseong’s explosive magic was powerful enough to reduce ordinary matter to ash. Enzo had taken it head-on not once, but twice.

And yet, aside from a few tears in his clothing, there was hardly any visible damage.

But that wasn’t the only reason we had suddenly fallen silent.

Whoosh.

His neck.

His ribs.

The minor burns scattered across his skin.

One by one, the wounds covering Enzo’s awakened body began to heal.

“What the—? Did he sneak a potion while I wasn’t looking...?”

“No, Hunter Seo. I was watching the whole time. He never had the chance.”

His flesh was regenerating.

The primitive sorcerers stared at the phenomenon in momentary confusion, but I immediately shattered the silence.

“He used Patch!”

Haseong and Esther both turned toward me.

“He had an item hidden inside his clothes from the beginning—something that periodically restores both physical damage and magic power.”

“Ah!”

“Heuk.”

“There’s nothing better for using in the middle of a battle, so naturally it costs dozens of times more than a potion—and yet he’s covered himself in them like they’re nothing....”

It took only a few seconds for shock to spread across their faces.

“But I guess the merchant who sold them to him neglected to mention something. If you overuse them even slightly, you hit the limit almost immediately!”

To think that a high-grade recovery item existed in a non-liquid form.

For a moment, I was almost envious.

But considering the evolutionary stage of Earthlings, this was actually a stroke of luck for us.

“Maybe his greater body mass lets him endure it a little longer than average, but even then, I don’t think he has more than a few minutes left.”

Drawing on future energy like that gave you an overwhelming advantage in a short battle.

But the moment you reached the limit, the use of all recovery items became completely impossible.

“...”

Beside me, Esther muttered bitterly that this must have been why the beasts on the other floors had been able to use their skills endlessly.

And it was at that very moment.

“There’s something I’ve been wondering about for a while now...”

The man in leather, his neck now completely healed, finally spoke.

“It seems the person who killed that woman really was from 33Aw...”

There wasn’t a single part of that sentence that didn’t bother me.

“But what’s the point of digging into something like that? I’ve already committed to this whole beast act. I might as well stay in character and not even talk to humans.”

But whether fortunately or unfortunately,

the situation changed drastically before Korea’s top two-ranked hunters could even begin to dwell on the suspicious number “33.”

“Hahaha.”

Click.

The moment he planted his right foot heavily on the ground, a chilling static charge swept through the air, powerful enough to make the dry vegetation around us stand rigidly upright.

“What—the hell, was I the only one fooled? Life’s a waste, and it isn’t even all that fun anyway.”

It was around the moment I thought I heard a faint tick.

“Ugh!”

“Hunter Kim!”

He moved at a speed far beyond what the eye could follow.

Enzo had apparently stored away the spear he had been using before losing consciousness. In an instant, he pulled it back out of his item box and readied himself once more.

Weapon firmly in hand, he charged straight at us.

And naturally, the first target he chose was the softest-bodied alien among the group.

“Get off!”

“This!”

“Wait, maybe it’s just me, but... through the noise-canceling earpiece, I could’ve sworn that guy’s English pronunciation sounded just like—”

Enzo had almost completely recovered.

Electricity erupted from him in a frenzy, making him look like a thunder god who had descended straight from some temple in the heavens.

Seo Esther dragged me backward while Jung Haseong tried to blast the enemy away with another explosion.

We had the advantage in numbers.

The problem was that my former defenders of Korea were hardly in peak condition themselves.

“Damn it, of course. The healing agents available on Earth are still nothing but cheap substitutes by Alphaurm standards!”

And then the worst of all possible outcomes unfolded.

I had hoped that keeping him immersed in poison would at least make some difference.

But Fritz Enzo, the awakened one, overwhelmed two 5-rank hunters all by himself.

His equipment was impressive as well, but more than that, Enzo seemed to possess magic far superior to theirs, as though he had sold his house and poured every last coin into strengthening himself.

“Now that I’m seeing him fight properly, I understand...”

In a capitalist society, money was practically synonymous with power.

But I had never imagined the day would come when the difference in wealth would manifest itself so blatantly as raw physical force.

“Even without the artifacts, he was already a sorcerer on Morgan’s level.”

Fzzzzzt!

That particular power was especially difficult to control.

Jung Haseong’s flames contained an enormous amount of magic, spread to an absurd degree, could be influenced surprisingly easily by the wind, and, above all, belonged to a delicate attribute that made concentrating power into a single point extremely cumbersome.

Yet Enzo manipulated that same power with the precision of his own fingertips, scorching the enemies before him—Jung Haseong and Esther.

“This is horrible.”

Why hadn’t I realized it from the beginning?

They must have known as well.

They knew that the Patch, constantly restoring their strength, was damaging their bodies.

And yet they had shown no hesitation in launching a full-scale battle against us.

There had to be a reason.

“So this is how horrible a body without mana can be...”

Damn.

“Come 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 as helplessness threatened to drag me into panic, I forced myself to think.

“Should I somehow steal the Shroud back from the immobilized criminals? No. With this pathetic body, hobbling around like this, they’d definitely...”

And just as I was about to suggest to my temporary teammates that we retreat—because no matter how many times I turned the situation over in my head, I couldn’t find an answer—

Swoosh.

It happened right around then.

Suddenly, it felt as though my field of vision had grown slightly brighter.

“Huh.”

The sun.

“Huh?”

An artificial sun conjured by magic had risen somewhere overhead.

And in this dungeon, whenever the appearance of the ceiling changed, that phenomenon was always followed by the same thing.

“What...”

“...Not the time...”

“Leave the monsters that followed...”

“...That way?... Is it coming?”

“Go straight...!”

The chambers of the ant nest-like dungeon shifted once again.

The room on the first floor rotated to the second, the second to the third, and the third back to the first.

In short, the entire dungeon had shifted one position, like the cylinder of a revolver clicking into place.

But come to think of it, this gate was classified as only A-rank in terms of danger.

And an entire group of elite hunters had been waiting right outside the entrance.

“Ah!”

Considering how much time had passed, they should now be entering through the first-floor chamber.

“Catch them!”

“Get them first!”

“Oh, it’s the Beast!”

South Korea’s top awakened beings had arrived.

And at the head of their charge, just as expected, was someone wielding the [Searcher].

“Kim Gryeo-ssi...”

“Seonwoo Yeon-ssi...”

Leaving her outside had allowed the hunters to navigate the tangled, web-like structure of the first floor at high speed.

Moreover, judging by the timing, they should already have reached the chamber inside the burrow and begun searching for the crawlspace leading downward.

“The dungeon’s time zone changed before they even finished clearing the room.”

Swoosh!

What happened next was something even Enzo, the beast himself, apparently hadn’t anticipated.

“?!”

The government agent who had arrived with the reinforcements threw an item the instant she appeared on that floor.

The orb shattered.

In the next moment, the dungeon floor became so slick that maintaining one’s footing was nearly impossible, and Enzo’s massive body abruptly pitched backward.

“Cover it!”

“Tie it up, tie it up!”

“Of course, the ‘friction coefficient’ is the same for every rank!”

“That’s the kind of massive net you’d use to catch a whale. Oh, and it even comes with a mana-draining curse!”

Skills.

Consumable items.

Equipment effects.

And more.

The Korean hunters took full advantage of the instant Enzo went down and unleashed every suppression method at their disposal.

In the blink of an eye, Enzo Chano was wrapped up like a tightly bound cocoon.

Whoever had done it clearly knew what they were doing. An extra white cord had even been looped around the vulnerable nape of his neck, a known weak point for Earth-style fighters.

Clean.

Precise.

“Hunter Kim Gryeo. Are you, are you okay?”

And when I turned my head,

“This time I’m here to help you!”

a mammal wearing an expression impossible to decipher—somewhere between laughter and tears—greeted the alien.