“I’ll help you, Euijin!”
At the sudden shout, he quickly turned his head to see two people on the rooftop of a nearby building, preparing to cast magic at the Minotaur Lord. From the alley beside that building, five men and women armed with weapons came charging in at the same time.
They were Eclipse members. It seemed that a few of them had broken away from their formation after noticing that a full-scale battle had broken out on this side, and had come to offer support.
What showed on their faces wasn’t tension — it was excitement.
They probably had some awareness of the risk they were taking.
But what drove them forward more than that was their assessment that the boss monster in front of them was already weakened, and the misguided greed to grab the rewards while they had the chance.
Seeing them, Jeong Euijin’s expression hardened.
“Wait — you can’t come any closer yet!”
The Eclipse members’ support was supposed to be limited to when he sent a signal to Heo Yunji.
And yet they had joined him here — not out of any noble will to help him, but out of the calculated judgment that they could grab the bonus experience and Coins that could only be obtained by dealing damage directly to the boss monster.
They had probably been hiding and watching for their chance, and only moved in once they confirmed the Minotaur Lord had been hit with a bleed debuff.
He didn’t want to condemn that judgment. Experience and Coins were far too important in this world where survival was a daily struggle, so the greed itself was understandable enough.
But that greed should not have come out now.
Pfhhhh—!
The Minotaur Lord let out a thunderous snort and launched itself forward.
Throughout its charge, its torn muscles twisted grotesquely. The massive beast’s lunge was heavy and fast — hard to believe it was a body losing blood. Cracks spread across the ground beneath its hooves like a spiderweb.
The Minotaur Lord didn’t charge toward Jeong Euijin.
It charged toward the Eclipse members who had been rushing at it trying to deal even the slightest bit of damage.
“Get out of the way!”
Jeong Euijin shouted and gave chase, but he was too late.
The Minotaur Lord’s axe cleaved the five Eclipse members charging toward it clean in half.
It was less of an attack and more of a natural disaster. The air split along the path the axe blade carved, and the delayed shockwave caught up with the bodies of the people in its wake.
“Ugh—!”
“Gkh—!”
The three standing at the front were bisected at the waist by the axe blade. The two at the very back had their bodies torn apart in multiple places by the shockwave and were slammed into a wall.
Next, the Minotaur Lord swung its axe upward and launched the upper half of one of the members — whose waist had been severed, sending him briefly airborne — hurling it like a projectile toward the two people on the building rooftop who had been preparing their magic.
“Uwah—!”
“Hiiik—!”
They recoiled in horror at the sight of the corpse, split in two, flying at them like a ball.
CRAAASH—!
The building they were standing on collapsed with an enormous roar. It had failed to withstand the force of the Minotaur Lord’s powerful blow.
The concrete walls cracked as if exploding outward from the inside. The rooftop railing buckled, and shattered glass and dust erupted all at once.
As the two members screamed and plummeted down along with the building’s debris, the Minotaur Lord did not simply leave them be.
As if determined to make absolutely certain they were dead, it slashed them out of the air with its axe. Cleaved into multiple pieces before they could even hit the ground, the two could no longer even scream.
Splat. Splat.
The humans who had been alive just moments ago became severed chunks of flesh, falling among the rubble and making a horrific sound.
RUMBLE—
Amid the thunderous roar that shook the very earth, Jeong Euijin ground his teeth.
In an instant, seven of his comrades had died right before his eyes.
Even if they were fellow Eclipse members, he had barely exchanged words with them, and had no particular fond memories of them — but the fact that comrades had been killed by a monster in front of him was undeniably real.
The anger that had slowly built up gathered into Jeong Euijin’s right hand. The ordinary longsword he had been gripping in that hand began to seep a dark energy that gradually thickened, until it revealed a jet-black blade — as though it had been plunged deep into ink and pulled back out.
〈Blood-Craving Dancer〉
— Attack Power: 66
— One of the seven great weapons left behind by the Vampire Queen.
— Absorbs the user’s rage, bloodlust, and obsession to grant powerful properties to the blade.
— Attack power, sharpness, and penetration increase in stages according to the anger gauge accumulated during battle.
— Special effect can unleash up to five times the base attack power. However, as the price for this, there exists a risk of the user’s mind being eroded.
— Special Effect: Wrath Resonance
Past Jeong Euijin’s right hand and right arm, even the white of his right eye had been dyed completely black.
His two longswords — one red, one black — flew without hesitation toward the Minotaur Lord’s neck. The movement was markedly different from the steady, balanced offense and defense he had maintained up until now.
CRASH—! BANG—!
An enormous sound rang out — one no one could have imagined was the clash of an axe and swords.
***
〈1 Hour Elapsed〉
〈The penalty has been lifted.〉
My eyes snapped open and I quickly looked around.
There was no one in the alley.
A thick, inexplicable smell of blood drifted through the air, but there was no time to dwell on it.
I snatched up the Mystery Box and the note that had fallen to the ground, and dashed out of the alley.
Where did they go?
Not a sound could be heard. If a fight was still going on, there should have been some kind of crash or scream — but it was strangely, deeply quiet.
Still, it wasn’t long before I reached an intersection that bore the clear marks of recent destruction. A battle had undeniably taken place here just moments ago.
Using the most heavily damaged spots as my guide, I walked on — and soon found a single man standing motionless in the midst of a scene of complete chaos.
It was Jeong Euijin.
He stood still, both swords hanging at his sides. He seemed to be catching his breath after finishing the fight.
In front of where Jeong Euijin stood, a mountain of ash had piled up.
“Ah….”
It was a familiar sight.
The corpses of NPCs or raid boss monsters always ended up like that.
As if there was no need to leave behind even a body. As if they weren’t meant to remain in this world.
Looking at the towering pile of black ash, I understood that the Minotaur Lord was already dead.
〈The 1st Sequence of ‘Main Quest: Prologue’ has ended.〉
〈Player Jeong Euijin, who dealt the final blow to the Minotaur Lord, is awarded the ‘First Fragment of the Eroded Tree (Zone 2 Exclusive).’〉
Perhaps because I had been involved in the quest, a message about the main quest and whatnot appeared for me as well.
Over that system window, another notification overlapped.
〈The effect of Trait: Mental Stability is maximized.〉
My mind cleared in an instant.
Haven’t seen that in a while. But why is this message popping up all of a sudden?
It was a notification I had seen countless times up until last year, but this year I could barely remember seeing it. Maybe that’s why it felt oddly nostalgic.
I tilted my head and walked toward Jeong Euijin. My steps, unlike before, were neither hurried nor anxious.
Just calm, as they always were.
Sensing my presence, Jeong Euijin spun around to look at me. His face lit up in an instant.
“Jaea! Are you alright?!”
He had been returning his swords to their sheaths, but now hastily covered his right eye with a belated look of alarm. Between the fingers of his left hand covering his eye, something like black heat haze seeped faintly through.
“What’s wrong?”
“Just a moment… give me just a moment. It’ll settle down soon.”
Jeong Euijin stretched out his hand as if to tell me not to come any closer, and turned his head away as well. The problem was that his right hand and right arm — the same ones he had extended toward me — didn’t look particularly normal either. His sleeve and skin alike were so completely black that you couldn’t tell them apart.
I had a rough idea of why he had ended up in that state.
Every time we stopped by the Special Supply Station, I already knew what abilities each of his two swords carried.
And also…
Those battles I used to watch whenever I was bored — like a YouTube live stream — were his.
I walked over without hesitation and pulled down Jeong Euijin’s hand that was covering his eye. Surprisingly, he let me lower it without any resistance.
I saw a completely black eye — one where even the pupil was indistinguishable. It looked entirely different from the left eye, which was clear and beautiful like a glass marble.
But it wasn’t disgusting. It wasn’t frightening.
Stage 2, huh. Then if I leave it alone, it’ll settle down on its own.
One of Jeong Euijin’s two swords — the Blood-Craving Dancer — could boost his attack power up to five times based on his anger gauge. Proportionally, Jeong Euijin’s appearance would become stained with dark energy in multiples — and if even his pupil had transformed, that put it at Stage 2.
From what I had seen, up to Stage 3, it would settle down on its own just fine given enough time.
That was something only I could tell — having spent two years as a devoted fan of Jeong Euijin’s dungeon-clearing live streams.
