Shin-yul flew in — literally — using his ability. As Hee-young’s frail body began to sway and tilt dangerously, the people around him let out startled cries and scrambled to catch him — but Shin-yul arrived faster than any of them, catching that slight, fragile body before it could even finish falling and locking it into his arms. In the same instant, Seung-jun — who had been standing there with a vacant expression — was lifted into the air and slammed hard into the ground.
“Seung-jun!”
Screams rang out from every direction, but Shin-yul’s golden eyes flashed as he continued driving Seung-jun into the earth. Seung-jun threw up a barrier around himself belatedly, but having already taken the initial hit — and now layered with the burden of his shield shattering again and again in succession — he was in a complete wreck.
After slamming Seung-jun into the ground several more times, Shin-yul hurled him away to a distance and turned his ice-cold gaze on the Center Guide who had entered with Ha-ram — standing huddled among the frightened Guides.
“Treat him.”
At the glacial command, the Guide couldn’t even get a word out and went sprinting over to Seung-jun. Shin-yul carefully ran his eyes over Hee-young — taking in the right wrist that had swollen red, the clothes he had personally dressed him in now shredded to tatters, and the creature blood and fluids smeared across his body — and checked his condition. Then he picked up a first aid kit and carried Hee-young straight into the Paired tent.
The assault team members who arrived behind them stole glances at Shin-yul walking past with his terrifying expression and Hee-young held in his arms, their own faces going pale. The Guides were injured. Guides — who should have been the most protected people in any confrontation with monsters — had been attacked right here in base camp, even with a defensive Esper recently praised as one of the most capable around. They couldn’t fully make sense of it — and on top of that, the most critical person, an Esper, had been reduced to a bloodied mess. But Shin-yul was team leader, and inside a Dungeon, it was treated like a wartime situation — absolute chain of command was the rule. Which meant none of them could stop Shin-yul from handing out his own harsh punishment.
For now, they decided to tend to Ha-ram first, who had been attacked by the creature. By some stroke of luck, the creature that had attacked was a Kerkoi — one of the weakest species — and what appeared to be a particularly young and feeble specimen at that, so there was no immediate danger to his life. The team treated Ha-ram using the first aid kits they’d brought. The bite was fairly deep and wouldn’t stop bleeding, but simply not losing an arm was nothing short of a miracle. Had it been a fully grown adult specimen — weak species or not — there would have been no guaranteeing Ha-ram’s life, given that he had the same physical capabilities as an ordinary person.
It was certain the Kerkoi carried no venom, so once the bleeding was stopped and the wound tightly bandaged, Ha-ram rested in the subdued, silent atmosphere — until Shin-yul re-emerged and called everyone together into the central tent.
“Explain.”
Ha-ram swallowed a sigh at Shin-yul’s low voice. He recalled what had just happened.
He had been deep in the lesson, and Hee-young had been doing nothing but exhaling troubled sighs — and neither of them had noticed the creature approaching. In truth, even if their attention hadn’t been elsewhere, none of them would have imagined a creature penetrating base camp. Shin-yul had swept through the area around base camp and eliminated every trace of creatures, and Seung-jun — who had never allowed even a single creature breach in all their runs of the 1178 Dungeon — had been left behind. That fact had made them careless. It was their own fault for forgetting that inside a Dungeon, you had to stay alert at all times.
Seated across from each other at a small table, it was Ha-ram who had spotted the Kerkoi first. The moment he saw it lunging toward them with startling speed, he threw himself forward to shield Hee-young. There was no time to call out a warning. If he hadn’t, Hee-young would have taken the bite directly to the throat and died on the spot. Even looking at the wound on his left forearm, Ha-ram didn’t regret what he’d done for a single second.
But what came next was what truly stunned him. Without a moment’s hesitation, Hee-young had driven a knife into the Kerkoi’s scruff and into its eye — while it was still clamped down on Ha-ram’s forearm and refusing to let go. When the knife wouldn’t go in cleanly through the Kerkoi’s tough hide at the scruff, Hee-young immediately redirected and plunged the blade into the largest of the seven grotesquely blinking eyes — the one in the center. The long, sharp blade sank deep into the creature’s eye with a spurt of dark green blood. Writhing in pain, the Kerkoi released Ha-ram’s arm — and Hee-young kept relentlessly targeting the soft, vulnerable eye area, stabbing again and again.
There was no hesitation in those hands. No flinching. Even as flesh flew and blood splattered, Hee-young wielded the knife the way someone long accustomed to it would — focused purely on killing the creature in his grip. Even as the violently thrashing Kerkoi scratched and wounded him in return, Hee-young drove the blade in without pause and took its life.
It was chilling. His eyes, wide with adrenaline, were filled with something feverish and killing-sharp, and the way he handled the knife was as skilled as a seasoned fighter’s. Any ordinary person seeing a creature for the first time — or even an Esper encountering one for the first time — would naturally hesitate or falter. And regardless of whether the target was a creature or not, taking a life is something most people recoil from. But in Hee-young, not a trace of that hesitation existed. He just kept stabbing, relentless and cold.
Once the badly wounded Kerkoi collapsed in exhaustion first, Hee-young didn’t pause — he plunged the knife in succession into the vital points: abdomen, heart, scruff. The tough hide meant it didn’t go in cleanly the first time, so he bore down and drove it in again and again. Even after the creature was clearly dead, he tore through the hide and split open the organs — as if making absolutely certain — a few more times. The entire thing had taken only a few minutes.
Listening to Ha-ram’s account, everyone was already puzzled as to how a young, immature Kerkoi had managed to breach what had been a solid barrier in the first place. On top of that, the assault team always performed an additional sweep using the Searcher’s detection ability when clearing around base camp, ensuring everything was completely clean — which made the whole situation even more baffling.
But the most important point of all was this: with an Esper right there, it had been a Guide who dealt with the creature that breached base camp. Guides were beings to be protected until the very last possible moment. With a Guide’s Guiding, an Esper could even regenerate lost limbs. An Esper with Guiding was no different from a perpetual motion machine. That was precisely why a Guide’s safety was the absolute top priority in every situation.
And yet a Guide — one who had never entered a Dungeon before — had gone to the front line and fought a creature?
Eyes sharpened, and everyone looked over at Seung-jun, still collapsed on the ground.
So what was he doing?
“First of all, as you can see — a creature that is extremely weak can sometimes go undetected even by a Searcher’s ability.”
Byung-ho, the team’s only Searcher, said it almost like a defense. And it was true. Searchers detected the unique energy signatures that creatures carried — but if the energy was as faint as that of the immature Kerkoi lying dead right now, detecting it was particularly difficult. Even so, that wasn’t the real problem, and Shin-yul responded with a cold, contemptuous smile.
“So in all the 1178 Dungeon runs up until now, whenever there was an immature Kerkoi you just went around hunting for them on foot without the Searcher’s ability?”
“…….”
Of course not. Obviously not. As anyone who’d been there would know, the grass alone in the 1178 Dungeon grew to extraordinary heights — if the Kerkoi were determined to hide, going around searching for them on foot would be a full-time job in itself. Byung-ho had poured complete concentration into searching them out. It was difficult, not impossible. But this time, he hadn’t done that. He’d done a rough sweep of the area, and when nothing showed up clearly, he’d reported it clean. If nothing strong enough to register his detection was present, there was no way Seung-jun’s barrier would be breached — and they’d trusted an S-rank’s power from the start. As though they weren’t human beings. They had unconsciously assumed that the S-rank had wiped out every creature in the vicinity.
Shin-yul’s expression went cold and hard. How is it always exactly the same. He was sick of it — utterly disillusioned. Whatever people seemed to think about what it meant to be an S-rank, there were always one or two of them who relaxed and worked carelessly even inside a Dungeon where their own lives were on the line. Whether Shin-yul had a Guide or not made no difference to them. The S-rank will handle it somehow — that lazy, complacent assumption sometimes sent their lives teetering on the edge, and sometimes sent Shin-yul’s own.
When he encountered situations like that, he often had to use his ability right to the brink of Rampage to clean it up.
Until now, Shin-yul hadn’t cared. If their carelessness tripped them up, that was their responsibility — and his own life being endangered was simply another stretch of the threadbare existence an Esper without a Guide lived. Without a Guide, it was a life that would eventually give out one way or another. He had no attachment to living.
But not now. The thought that their careless mistake had put Hee-young in danger drove his fury straight through the ceiling.
For now — he could not leave Hee-young in this unsafe place any longer.
“The Guides have been injured. We’re heading back.”
At Shin-yul’s out-of-nowhere declaration, every team member went sheet-white. They had just come back from a sweep, and in those three hours alone, Shin-yul had taken down approximately five hundred more creatures. It was a pace that left even team members who had only ever worked safety-tier Dungeons and had never been paired with an S-rank completely floored — and Jeong-min, who had worked alongside S-ranks a few times before, was equally staggered. On top of that, most of the time lost was due to them falling behind counting creature carcasses — the actual time it took Shin-yul to kill them was barely anything. His declaration that they were heading back was entirely within the realm of possibility — and it also meant they’d be back in the field without a break.
“As for ‘that’ — we’ll deal with it once we’re outside.”
Shin-yul said it coolly, giving Seung-jun — still collapsed behind them — a brief, cold sideways glance.
“The rest of you hold base camp. That idiot is no longer of any use.”
With those final words, Shin-yul seized Byung-ho the Searcher by the collar and vanished in an instant. Two hours later, the Dungeon entrance opened for real. Total elapsed time: seven hours and forty-three minutes. A new record.
***
His eyes snapped open.
Looking around, there was a single empty bed left beside him, and an IV needle was inserted in his hand.
Hee-young swayed upright, struck by a strong sense of déjà vu. His head was foggy and spinning, so he pressed his fingers hard against his eyelids, rubbing them — and the hospital name printed on the familiar hospital gown came into view.
Ah, here again. Hee-young glanced around and clicked his tongue at the sight of his right hand and right foot in casts.
Still, I ran into a monster and all I’ve got is casts. Could be worse.
Hee-young thought back to the last thing he remembered — Shin-yul flying toward him. He’d trusted that idiot like an idiot himself, and that idiot had saved his life. The satisfaction of that trust being met alone was enough to put him in a good mood.
But why was he outside? He’d heard the Dungeon was supposed to take about a week. He mulled it over for a moment — then let it go.
Eh, whatever. Alive is what counts.
He dismissed it without a second thought and flopped back down onto the bed. His whole body ached — probably from using muscles he’d never used before when taking down that creature. Given how badly this wretched body fell apart at any given moment, he wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d been knocked out for a whole week straight.
He was in the middle of cursing the miserable body belonging to some stranger he’d never even met — as he always did — when he heard the hospital room door open carefully. He thought it was going to be Han Shin-yul, that guy — but he found himself smiling before he even realized it. He was already looking forward to praising the idiot for doing something right for once, and started struggling to push himself upright despite everything.
“Hee-young! You’re awake! I was worried — you kept not coming around.”
“Oh…. It’s you, teach. Your arm?”
“Thanks to you. I’m grateful.”
Hee-young looked at Ha-ram, who was wearing the same hospital gown as him, and gave a flat yeah, yeah, good, manners and all — but kept his eyes fixed pointedly on Ha-ram’s back. There’s no way he wouldn’t come.
Ha-ram noticed the direction of Hee-young’s gaze and glanced back over his own shoulder, then checked Hee-young’s expression again.
“What is it? Is something there?”
“Oh — yeah. No, nothing. Just wondering when the doctor’s coming.”
“Ah…. Rounds were just a little while ago. Is something bothering you?”
Even at Ha-ram’s kind words, Hee-young just kept staring at the slightly ajar door.
He’s not coming? What? That barnacle — what’s gotten into him.
Hee-young caught himself still thinking about Shin-yul and shook his head.
What does it matter. Nice to have that annoying guy out of my hair.
Ha-ram seemed to interpret the head shake as meaning nothing was uncomfortable, and smiled brightly. That’s a relief.
“Oh, Hee-young — someone from The Center will be coming by soon. They’re coming to take witness statements about what happened. And apparently you’ll also be compensated for the fact that they let you enter the Dungeon knowing the state of your body. Workers’ compensation.”
Hee-young’s face lit up.
“Yeah? So I don’t have to go to a Dungeon for a while?”
“Uh, probably not for the time being?”
Oh, thank God. Hee-young called on the god he only ever remembered in times of need. Finally, I can rest. No matter how strong Shin-yul was — no matter that he’d actually come to believe the guy would protect him — he had absolutely no confidence in dragging this pitiful, crumbling body through encounters with terrifying creatures on a regular basis. He’d killed one, sure. While shattering his own limbs in the process.
Ha-ram, looking at Hee-young’s bright face, moved over to his own bed and rummaged through his belongings. He pulled out the thick textbook he’d brought to the Dungeon and smiled pleasantly. There was something that looked distinctly like madness in his eyes.
“So I was thinking — we’ll hold lessons while you’re hospitalized. I felt it so clearly this time. You need knowledge, Hee-young.”
What? Oh, for f—
God is dead.
Nietzsche wins again.
