As an eyeball the size of a human head burst apart and a viscous liquid trickled down onto the floor, one of the team members couldn’t hold it in.
“I think I’m actually going to throw up.”
The monsters in this Dungeon were admittedly grotesque and horrific in appearance across the board.
The ordinary monsters had possessed only one of the two — either eyes or a mouth — but the boss monster the clearing team now faced had both, and the eyes and mouths that bloomed like scattered dots across its smooth, slick-looking skin were hideous enough to make even experienced hunters wrinkle their faces.
“Damn thing — how many eyes and mouths does it have?”
But the situation didn’t exactly leave room for complaints.
As a tongue resembling a tentacle shot out from a newly splitting mouth, the hunters tensed their bodies. One wrong brush against those bumpy, spine-covered tongues and they’d be losing limbs.
Up until now, no more than two tongues had emerged at once — but nobody knew how that might change going forward. It wasn’t all that uncommon for a monster that had seemed to follow a pattern to suddenly move in an unexpected way.
On top of that, the sticky fluid seeping from the monster’s skin seemed to act as a protective layer — Dojun was the only one capable of breaking through its hide.
“Team leader, what do we do?”
Before Dojun could answer, an attack came flying in.
He threw his body aside to dodge the tongue that curved and plunged downward, deflecting the barrage of attacks that came pouring in one after another as he answered.
“Taking them out one by one would be inefficient, so…”
Thud.
Dojun tilted his head slightly to avoid an attack coming from above, and as he shoved a rookie who had also been in the line of fire safely out of the way, he continued.
“Let’s try to provoke it into going all out.”
“How?”
Dojun stared directly at the tongue shooting toward him again and replied.
“We irritate it.”
Crack!
The spine-riddled tongue launched forward with a sharp tearing of air. At the same moment, two pairs of eyes that had spotted Dojun making no move to dodge curved gleefully upward, anticipating the bloodbath to come.
But the tongue that had been drooling in anticipation of tearing its target apart was suddenly severed without warning — and the eyes that had been creasing into gleeful curves burst apart one after the other.
Splat. Two heavy, wet masses hit the floor, and a brief silence fell.
But only for a moment — the boss monster, having lost two tongues and four eyes in an instant, flung open every one of its clamped-shut mouths and let out a shriek.
Enraged by the counterattack from prey it had expected to destroy, the monster began stamping its feet wildly.
At that, a faint smile crossed Dojun’s face.
“It’s worked up. Everyone, fall back.”
Dozens of pairs of eyes spun in frantic circles, searching for the one who had struck it — but Dojun and the team members had already moved clear.
The boss monster, maddened beyond restraint, threw open over a dozen mouths as if intent on attacking everything around it, and drew out its tongues.
And that choice decided the outcome.
“Stupid thing.”
The force that had sliced clean through even the monster’s hide — thicker and tougher than its tongues — split those menacingly launched tongues in a single stroke, then drove into the opened mouths and tore through the soft interior.
SCREECH!
Just as expected, the monster’s internal defenses were pathetically weak compared to its outer shell.
Lifted into the air by Dojun’s force, the monster fought back with everything it had. But the harder it struggled, the faster its insides were destroyed beyond any hope of recovery.
Crash.
A moment later, Dojun withdrew his power and looked down at the monster’s body where it had fallen.
As a purple liquid spread in a thick pool from the collapsed mass — now half its original size — the team members began approaching the monster one by one.
One of them, watching the motionless body, muttered quietly.
“…Is it over?”
“Not yet.”
Even with the boss monster dead, the most important part still remained.
Sure enough, the liquid that had been seeping from the boss monster’s body began to gather into a single stream and move.
The hunters held their breath, watching where the writhing liquid — almost like a living creature — was heading.
Those standing in its path let out sighs of relief each time it passed them by.
But those sighs turned into a cheer the moment the liquid flowed into a bag sitting on the floor.
“Yeah!”
The hunters who had kept their guard up even after the boss monster’s death finally let themselves burst with joy.
The greatest danger inside a Dungeon was the monsters — but the second thing to watch out for was the Dungeon aftereffect, which struck at a fixed probability.
Fortunately, no one had received an aftereffect this time — and there was one more piece of good news beyond that.
The hunter who opened the bag that the monster’s last traces had flowed into cried out in excitement.
“Team leader, we got an item!”
Dojun, who had been keeping watch over the now-dead boss monster as a precaution, withdrew his power.
Whoosh.
The force that had overwhelmed the boss monster swept through the air like a gentle breeze and gathered back to Dojun.
His clothes and hair stirred lightly and then settled — and the hunters crowded around him, chattering.
“Good work today.”
“You blocked our ears with the wind at the end too, right? It looked like it was screaming its head off but we could barely hear it.”
“An item, I’m telling you! Look!”
Dojun, who held the power to control wind, smoothed back his disheveled hair and checked what was in the bag.
Sure enough, a handful of the objects inside were emitting an energy that could only be felt from monsters or Awakened individuals.
Objects with special power — items.
“Five of them.”
“Looks like there’s at least one high-grade in there?”
The hunters craned their necks to peer into the bag.
Items appeared at roughly the same probability as aftereffects — they were the Dungeon’s reward, each possessing a unique power, and they traded at extraordinarily high prices.
If it were nothing but danger, people wouldn’t bother being hunters.
Items were the hunters’ primary source of income, and the financial returns from them were enormous enough to make the risk of Dungeon aftereffects worth it.
“It’s fascinating, isn’t it? By the thinnest margin, one thing becomes a curse and another becomes an item.”
“Because when the boss monster’s last power goes into a person it becomes a curse, and when it goes into an object it becomes an item.”
“Back in the old days they used to call items the Dungeon’s blessing, you know. Then it got heated because people said how dare you use the word ‘blessing’ — so they came to an agreement to officially call them items instead.”
A conversation started by a rookie who hadn’t been a hunter long began to stretch out.
The clear was done, the item haul was good — and with the senior hunters in high spirits, the rookie asked her next question with an equally bright face.
“So is that also why they changed ‘Dungeon’s curse’ to ‘Dungeon aftereffect’? So people wouldn’t make too big a deal out of it — calling it a blessing or a curse?”
“That’s part of it, but unlike ‘blessing,’ ‘Dungeon’s curse’ is still a phrase that gets used a lot even now.”
“‘Curse’ is the one that should’ve been changed, really. There are symptoms that come up sometimes that are hard to even call a curse.”
“That’s true. Sometimes aftereffects cancel each other out and you actually end up better off — and there are even symptoms that are beneficial from the start.”
As they said — very occasionally, a Dungeon aftereffect actually benefited the hunter.
There were cases where someone gained a faint new ability, where an old injury healed, or where a new aftereffect directly opposite to an existing one caused the original problem to disappear.
Though those were rare exceptions, and far more often, aftereffects brought large or small inconveniences to daily life.
“You’d have to get about thirty bad ones before something like that might show up.”
“It’s kind of like how not every item is actually useful to us, right?”
Prompted by the seniors’ explanations, the rookie hunter asked her next question with wide, curious eyes.
“Is it true that Dungeon aftereffects tend to be related to the characteristics of the boss monster?”
“That’s right. And items too — the power takes root in whichever object we brought in that best matches the boss monster’s characteristics.”
“That’s why we carry so many different things into Dungeons. Before we go in, we can’t know what kind of characteristics the boss monster has.”
A senior hunter showed the rookie the bag’s contents one more time and laughed cheerfully.
“By the way, you’re incredibly lucky. Getting an item right away on your very first Dungeon is rare.”
“One high-grade, two mid-grade, two low-grade — after you see your bank balance you’ll probably feel like you could skip meals for a week.”
At the teasing tone, the rookie hunter looked at Dojun with expectant eyes.
Dojun met that young face — barely an adult — and gave a soft smile.
“That’s right. Once the company finishes appraising the items, you’ll receive a performance bonus.”
When he told her the rough figure she’d be getting, the rookie’s eyes went wide.
“I get to keep that much? You’re the one who caught the boss monster, team leader.”
Dojun’s smile deepened at the earnest response.
“You’ll end up helping me in the future, so don’t worry about it.”
Following Dojun’s lead, the seniors reached over and ruffled the rookie’s hair.
“Listen, kid — inside a Dungeon, we look out for each other.”
“Next time you might be the one helping the team leader.”
It wasn’t wrong.
Dojun’s ability had been highly effective in this Dungeon — but the next one might bring a monster that wind simply didn’t work against.
And more than anything, it was because capable teammates kept clearing Dungeons and raising Seonmyeong’s value that Dojun’s own chances of obtaining that item increased as well.
The item that nullified Dungeon aftereffects.
As difficult as it is to obtain, we have to keep as many options open as possible.
The best outcome would be for Seonmyeong Guild to obtain it directly through a Dungeon clear — but even if not, as the guild grew larger, if that item ever truly appeared in the world, word of it would reach Dojun’s ears quickly.
Going public with Hanul’s aftereffect had also been partly to ensure that anyone seeking to trade that item in secret would know how desperately they wanted it.
No meaningful results yet, but…
“Me — help you, team leader?”
The rookie looked back awkwardly at the fallen boss monster, then up at Dojun with a doubtful expression.
“I… will do my very best to try.”
Whether trying will actually be enough to help you, I genuinely don’t know.
The question written clearly across the rookie’s face drew a laugh out of Dojun, and he declared the Dungeon clear.
With that, Seonmyeong Guild Dungeon Clearing Team 1 concluded a successful run and made their way out of the Dungeon.
“Seonmyeong Guild Dungeon Clearing Team 1, all members returned.”
“Good work, everyone.”
“Any injuries? Any aftereffects?”
“Oh! Did you get an item?”
Dojun handed off the items to the guild staff who had been waiting outside the Dungeon, then turned to find the owner of the gaze that had been persistently grazing his cheek.
Hanul was waving, smiling as though genuinely pleased to see him.
Dojun parted ways with the clearing team and walked over to Hanul.
They were in the same guild, and no one in it was unaware of the two’s relationship — so no one paid particular attention to them being together.
“Why are you here?”
At Dojun’s puzzled question, Hanul’s eyes curved into a long crescent as he smiled.
Reading something suspicious in that smile, Dojun issued a warning before the answer could come.
“Don’t say it’s because you missed me.”
But Hanul paid him no mind.
“Dojun, I missed you.”
Dojun’s brow furrowed with irritation.
Here we go again.
