# Chapter 43
Is he still half-asleep? No, just how badly must Guide Yu Junseo have been treating Esper Choi Dohyuk to be serving him food? What’s the point of coming from a good family and having a high rank as a Guide if you’re going to torment someone like this from the morning?
Although Sangjun and Jihun’s thought processes were completely different, ironically, their conclusions were the same.
They wanted to stop seeing this spectacle.
***
The meal time had ended.
After yesterday’s search, they concluded that the dungeon reconfiguration had not yet taken place. There had been no response to Hansol’s exploration, and neither Sangjun nor Jaesik’s search had found any traces of monsters that appeared to have been created recently.
Based on the researchers’ calculations that the dungeon reconfiguration would happen tomorrow at the latest, they decided to focus today’s morning search on Hansol’s scanning. The thought was that it would be most efficient to start hunting and track the core once monsters were reborn and caught by Hansol’s exploration.
Hansol scanned for an hour, received 20 minutes of guiding, and then scanned for another hour. After repeating this several times, just after 3 PM, he reported to Sangjun as if he had discovered something.
It wasn’t clear yet whether it was a reconfigured Changgwi, but something was moving slowly there.
Sangjun quickly gave instructions.
“I’ll go to those coordinates with Esper Choi Dohyuk. Esper Seo Jaesik will guard the base. Esper Hansol, report the target’s coordinates by radio every 5 minutes.”
Sangjun glanced at Junseo, wondering if he would interfere like yesterday by making strange claims and nitpicking, but fortunately, Junseo seemed to accept Sangjun’s instructions.
“Esper Seo Jaesik, stay quietly alone in the tent. Don’t come near me at all.”
…Of course, he wasn’t completely agreeable.
“Please stop this already!”
“Please don’t shout. I’m really, really scared.”
The only one who looked worriedly at Junseo, who was expressing his fear in a voice that wasn’t fearful at all, was Dohyuk. Sangjun briefly spoke as he grabbed Dohyuk’s arm, who was about to move his lips to say he would stay at the base again.
“Esper Choi Dohyuk, let’s go.”
“…Yes, I understand.”
The way he looked back at the base with a regretful gaze made him seem like someone whose family was being held hostage somewhere. As Sangjun went out to search with Dohyuk, he wanted to tell him that there was no need for that. Of course, he only thought about it, afraid of what might happen if he destroyed the tower that bastard Yu Junseo had carefully built.
Sangjun and Dohyuk quickly left the base set up in the clearing and disappeared into the thick bushes. The lushly grown trees greedily swallowed the two silhouettes.
*
Dohyuk carefully scanned the surroundings as he followed Sangjun. He could see marks that must have been left by Sangjun and Jaesik during yesterday’s search. These were traces that would serve as landmarks for this search as well.
The jungle is easy to get lost in with similar trees everywhere. So Dohyuk diligently moved, looking for traces left on tree bark, scraping them with his dagger to create new marks.
He crossed through dense bushes. Vine plants resembling liana hung densely on the trees, obscuring visibility. He cut through the vines and broke small branches.
[Target moving, coordinates 5480, coordinates 5, 4, 8, 0. Over.]
Hansol’s voice came through the in-ear. Sangjun, who must have been hearing the same content, briefly acknowledged receipt. Sangjun always clicked his tongue in regret. Despite having an Esper with teleportation abilities on the team, the fact that they had to move directly during hunting stimulated his psychology of wanting to live his life as easily as eating sushi raw.
Monsters were sensitive to spatial distortions within the dungeon. They could read those gaps and even escape out of the dungeon, so there was a great risk of being ambushed if one teleported near a monster. It was fortunate that this was already a cleared dungeon, allowing teleportation to the base, but originally, using teleportation abilities inside dungeons was avoided as much as possible. It was one of the reasons why the time taken for dungeon stabilization could no longer be reduced.
He understood it intellectually, but it was always regrettable. Sangjun, who was about to sigh, paused.
“Esper Choi Dohyuk.”
Sangjun lowered his voice as if he had heard something rustling just as they almost reached the coordinates Hansol had provided. Despite only calling his name once, Dohyuk understood the instruction and quickly lowered his body, minimizing footsteps. Hidden among the densely placed bushes, Dohyuk keenly observed the surroundings.
Rustle. Rustle. Rustle. Rustle.
Something was slowly pushing through the bushes from beyond, approaching this way. Dohyuk gripped the dagger more tightly. Nearby, Sangjun also seemed to be heavily focused on the approaching movement.
Rustle.
What emerged after pushing through the last bushes was.
Meow.
A pitch-black cat.
It was the size of Dohyuk’s two hands and as elegant as an ordinary cat, but its scarlet eyes were bizarre. Even Sangjun frowned at the completely unexpected appearance of a cat.
“Have you ever seen something like this before?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“What’s the probability it’s an animal that came in from outside?”
“We can’t rule out that possibility. But there are no cats with red eyes unless they’re injured.”
Changgwis don’t take the form of animals. The anomalies occurring in the dungeon recently were so frequent that it was even ambiguous what this thing was.
Should we hunt it?
The scarlet eyes, too unusual to simply overlook, were stuck in his mind. Of course, there were occasional instances of wild animals accidentally entering from outside into the dungeon. But with a very high probability, they became prey or toys for monsters, and most remained only as corpses. Even if they were lucky enough to survive, animals that didn’t know how to escape died of starvation inside the dungeon. Sometimes Espers with nothing to do would rescue animals they happened to find alive, but it wasn’t easy for such luck to coincide. It was such a rare occurrence that you could count them on one hand even by global standards.
Seemingly having had similar thoughts, Sangjun quickly gave instructions.
“We aim for capture. However, if I judge it to be A-class or higher, we’ll hunt it.”
“Understood.”
Dohyuk, agreeing with Sangjun’s judgment, rushed at the cat first. Aiming for capture, he released a moderate amount of poisonous energy, intending to intoxicate it. The cat, apparently tense at the suddenly emerging figure, raised its fur straight up and jumped back, letting out a long cry. The poisonous energy Dohyuk had released copiously chased after the cat, undulating. Eventually, the poisonous energy, which had caught up even with the cat’s swift movements, enveloped the small body.
Meowwww!
Perhaps it instinctively sensed something wrapping around it. As it opened its mouth wide and meowed like an ordinary cat, Dohyuk slightly frowned. It felt nauseating to torment a powerless small animal. But it was a diluted poisonous energy that wouldn’t reach a lethal dose for a small animal, so it wouldn’t die. Dohyuk narrowed the distance, expecting the cat to collapse soon, trembling.
“…?”
Dohyuk pushed through between the bushes. As predicted, the cat was there, but contrary to expectations, the cat wasn’t intoxicated.
The cat, which he thought would rustle weakly and collapse, was licking its front paws. It didn’t seem like it was carelessly grooming itself with danger right in front of it. As if some tasty snack was all over it, it persistently licked only its front paws, and soon, sniffing, it approached Dohyuk.
Perplexed by the strange situation, as the unidentifiable cat approached, Dohyuk reflexively released a large amount of poisonous energy. It was still much weaker than what he would use when hunting monsters, but it exceeded the lethal dose for ordinary small animals.
But the cat, unconcerned, came right up to Dohyuk and bonked its tiny head against Dohyuk’s hand, which was emitting a lot of poisonous energy.
What is this?
It was so light and fluffy that it didn’t even feel real. It was like being brushed by feathers.
Dohyuk was very bewildered.
“…What.”
As the rough tongue began to deliciously lick his fingers, Dohyuk stiffened as if his entire body had been bound, and turned his head to look only at Sangjun. This was the same Dohyuk who, even while occasionally feeding stray cats or abandoned dogs outside, never thought to touch them, only admiring them with his eyes. Animals with a lot of wariness welcomed Dohyuk but maintained a certain distance. Dohyuk felt comfortable with that boundary, so he didn’t even feel disappointed.
But this.
For a moment, he didn’t know why Junseo came to mind.
Of course, Junseo has pitch-black hair and acts adorably in an elegant way like that. Plus, now that he thought about it, the way it approached Dohyuk without hesitation and blinked its eyes innocently was similar too.
At first, he felt puzzled about instinctively thinking of Junseo, but as his thoughts expanded, he reached the conclusion that the cat and Junseo were quite alike, so Dohyuk still couldn’t even think of moving and just bit his lower lip with his upper lip.
“Hmm.”
Sangjun, who also seemed unsure of how this situation was unfolding, quietly watched and then approached Dohyuk’s side. His intense observing eyes poured over the cat for a while, but there was no gain.
