“Get up. We have to go catch the boss.”
The voice falling from above was unbearably refreshing. Igyeol, sprawled on the floor, looked up at Sung Yohan smiling brightly above his head.
‘Crazy bastard….’
He bit his lip and swallowed the curse that was about to burst out automatically. He wanted to land a satisfying punch on that smooth face, but right now he didn’t even have the strength to move a finger. As he struggled feebly to force his body up, Sung Yohan extended his hand as if doing him a favor.
“Take it.”
“…Fuck off.”
Igyeol avoided the hand trying to support him. He couldn’t stand that Holy Power that poured out just from touching. At Igyeol’s blatant rejection, Sung Yohan made an ‘oops’ expression and quietly withdrew his hand.
“You still seem to be in pain?”
“Thanks to who.”
Igyeol barely stood up while pressing against the wall and groaning. His legs trembled, but his body was rapidly returning to normal. Sung Yohan looked Igyeol over with eyes that found this interesting.
“You’re an unregistered hunter, right?”
He’s been asking this tediously since earlier.
“How many times do I have to say I’m a C-rank hunter before you’ll listen? Do my words go in one ear and out the other?”
“I know for certain you’re not. Because you don’t avoid my eyes.”
Sung Yohan took a step closer. His pitch-black pupils persistently dug into Igyeol’s eyes. Igyeol was dumbfounded. Sung Yohan looked straight at Igyeol and said.
“People usually avoid them. Eyes imbued with Holy Power dig into a person’s insides like eyes imbued with magic power. As if they’ll dig through your head.”
“…Crazy bastard.”
Sung Yohan gave a strange smile. Igyeol let out an incredulous laugh.
“What are you, some kind of absolutely omnipotent god? What’s with ‘you don’t avoid my eyes.’ How funny, really.”
Igyeol glared at Sung Yohan as if he was talking nonsense and passed by him. Sung Yohan didn’t say more and just shrugged his eyebrows.
That’s when it happened.
Kishaaaa!!
With a tearing scream, something burst out from the darkness at the end of the corridor.
A doll wearing a black maid outfit. A ‘Cursed Maid’ with joints grotesquely bent, holding a kitchen knife in its hand. It was a monster contaminated by demonic energy with B-rank or higher ferocity.
Their reactions were simultaneous.
Sung Yohan gracefully extended his hand.
“Chains of—!”
Kwaang—!!
It was before Sung Yohan even pulled out his skill.
Igyeol, with his hand in his pocket, lightly extended his foot as if annoyed. It seemed like he just kicked it lightly, but the result was devastating.
The charging maid doll flew like a cannonball and was smashed into the wall.
Kugugugugung!
Bricks crumbled and dust rose. The doll was buried in the wall, folded in half without even being able to scream. The white chains extending from Sung Yohan’s fingertips lost their destination and drooped down from the air.
“……”
“……”
A moment of silence flowed.
As the dust settled, Sung Yohan slowly turned his head to look at Igyeol. The corner of his mouth rose crookedly.
“A C-rank hunter?”
Igyeol looked at Sung Yohan with a gaze of ‘what, why, so what.’ Honestly, he inwardly went ‘oops.’ It was because his reflexes had become quite sharp as his body recovered. Of course, they were sharp even before. But it was already spilled milk. Igyeol decided to be even more shameless.
“Oops, my foot slipped a bit from being startled. Why, what? You got a problem?”
“Your foot slipped and you mounted a monster on the wall?”
“I must have gotten lucky.”
Igyeol glared fiercely at Sung Yohan. He looked ready to throw a punch if he probed any further. Sung Yohan made an expression of disbelief, but soon smirked and recalled the Chains of Judgment he’d withdrawn.
“Right. A C-rank hunter who’s very lucky. Then I’ll look forward to your next stroke of luck.”
Kieeeek! Kishaak!
From beyond the collapsed wall, and from the ceiling and floor, dozens of maid dolls began pouring out. They were all enhanced specimens with bloodshot red eyes.
“They’re coming.”
Igyeol muttered briefly and twisted his body.
The battle began.
Chaeng! Kagang!
Sung Yohan’s chains danced through the air, crushing the dolls. Wherever the light touched, monsters vanished with screams. It was overwhelming force.
Igyeol moved leisurely through the gaps.
Kieek!
One maid doll hesitated in mid-air as it tried to stab a kitchen knife down at Igyeol. Its red eyes looked at Igyeol and trembled as if filled with fear.
‘…It caught the scent.’
The fragment embedded in Igyeol’s body. It was the Demon King’s fragment obtained from the Gate of Reversed Heaven. The ‘Fragment of Beelzebub.’
Thump—
Igyeol placed his hand near his heart. The filthy sensation felt like the fragment was reacting to its own kin.
‘Annoying.’
Since it was a Demon King’s fragment, it wasn’t a hierarchy that mere low-level demons could dare attack. The monsters instinctively avoided Igyeol and crowded toward Sung Yohan.
Thanks to that, Igyeol could very comfortably observe the battlefield, occasionally swatting away the clueless ones that approached.
‘That bastard does fight well.’
Sung Yohan was literally massacring them. Was he an S-rank Paladin? Was he an Exorcist? Anyway, to someone who handled Holy Power, mere B-rank contaminated monsters were no match.
Paaaaat—!!
The enormous Holy Power bursting from Sung Yohan’s hand swallowed the hall. Light so brilliant it was blinding. The moment he saw that light, Igyeol unconsciously swallowed dry saliva.
He’d gotten somewhat used to it now, his body no longer stung from that light.
‘…Looks delicious.’
It was a crazy thought. But his body remembered. Just a moment ago, the drug-like relief that came after that maddening pain. The sensation of the curse he’d suffered from for 100 years becoming quiet even if briefly.
‘If I eat just a bit more of that……’
Igyeol stared at Sung Yohan as if entranced, then suddenly shook his head.
‘No. Get a grip.’
That’s no different from real drugs. He has honey water. Grandmother Oksoon’s voice passed through his mind.
‘Honey water is just a temporary measure.’
‘Grandmother.’
‘This can’t fundamentally solve your problem, kid.’
‘Then what should I do?’
‘If you don’t want to die, go get treatment, you brat.’
‘Where is such a person, Grandmother?’
‘If you look, they’ll be there. Find them. Someone who’ll treat you.’
He remembered Grandmother’s words, clicking her tongue coldly. She said honey water couldn’t completely purify it. Grandmother… said that if he kept enduring with this, he’d eventually die. Igyeol lamented.
‘Grandmother, there’s no one to treat me. Where would such a person be?’
‘Somewhere in the world there’ll be someone, someone to treat my pretty Igyeol.’
‘You know you’re the only one who calls me pretty, right?’
‘Only me? There’ll be others who say our Gyeol is pretty. Granny guarantees it.’
Even while saying that, Grandmother Oksoon who smiled warmly while stroking his cheek with wrinkled hands. He suddenly missed that grandmother so much. Igyeol clicked his tongue.
‘Why am I suddenly thinking of the old lady, damn it.’
Igyeol crushed the head of the monster in front of him to shake off his distracting thoughts.
Puhk!
***
“Phew….”
The battle ended. The floor was full of doll debris. Sung Yohan adjusted his gloves without a single breath out of place.
“He’s not here.”
Even after going around all the rooms in the castle, Kang Yeongwon was nowhere to be seen. Sung Yohan said while looking around the empty room.
“I’ve searched all the rooms on this floor, but that child isn’t here.”
Igyeol also frowned. Kang Yeongwon. That brat wasn’t showing even a hint of where he’d hidden.
“Why the hell did that kid enter the dungeon anyway?”
“Don’t you know?”
Sung Yohan glanced at Igyeol.
“Know what?”
“The reason a non-awakened person tries to enter a dungeon is obvious.”
“…Because they want to awaken?”
“What else could it be? They believe the superstition that awakening bursts forth in a moment of crisis and commit reckless acts.”
“Ha, unbelievable.”
Igyeol swept his hand through his hair in disbelief.
“You’re ranking number 1, right? You’re in that position and you can’t even awaken one kid? These days there are programs that safely induce awakening if you just pay money.”
“I don’t do it because there’s no need to awaken them.”
Sung Yohan said curtly. It was a cold tone.
“That child’s noona absolutely wouldn’t allow it either.”
“Noona? He had a noona?”
Igyeol asked back. Sung Yohan’s expression sank strangely.
“What’s that noona doing, just leaving the kid alone?”
“She’s dead.”
Igyeol shut his mouth tightly. He felt like he was gradually becoming trash. No, he is trash. Igyeol wanted to sew his mouth shut. Sung Yohan continued.
“Kang Yeongeum.”
The three syllables that came from Sung Yohan’s mouth.
Igyeol’s footsteps stopped abruptly. It felt like his heart sank with a thud.
“……What?”
“That’s that child’s noona’s name. Nine years ago, she was one of the heroes who entered the Gate of Reversed Heaven as an ‘Apostle.'”
