He clicked his tongue briefly and shifted his gaze. Killing the boss that was charging at him right now came first. He quickly stepped to the left, and the centipede’s tail swept rapidly through the spot where he had been standing.
BANG—!
The ground shattered, sending fragments flying in every direction. If he had stayed in that spot, there wouldn’t have been anything left of him. Kang Mujin readjusted his stance and wrung out his remaining mana, channeling it into his sword — a sharp blue light coiled around the blade.
The boss, having withstood numerous attacks already, had cracks spreading across the shell of its body. Kang Mujin closed in on it as tightly as possible, aiming for the third segment.
Dozens of centipede legs rained down like spear tips. With his physical abilities pushed beyond their limits by Eunseong’s skill, Kang Mujin’s eyes could trace each trajectory clearly.
THUD!
Weaving through the legs driving into the ground, he finally forced his way into the boss’s body. Kang Mujin stomped down on the last leg blocking his path and launched himself upward. At last, the gap of the cracked third segment came into sharp focus before him. The boss’s one and only weak point.
“…Now — cut through it!”
The moment Eunseong’s words ended, Kang Mujin’s sword carved a blue arc through the air. The blue mana condensed in the blade erupted outward, cleaving cleanly through the centipede’s third segment.
KIEEEEEEK!
With a death shriek, the centipede’s massive body split in two and collapsed to the ground.
[Successfully defeated the boss ‘Shadow Centipede of Vicious Poison’ of B-Rank Dungeon ‘Shadow Swamp.’]
As the centipede fell, viscous green fluid sprayed out in every direction.
AAAAGH! It’s spraying! It’s spraying toward me!
Eunseong recoiled inwardly in horror and squeezed his eyes shut. Just being here was enough to make him want to faint on the spot — if he got drenched in that monster’s fluids on top of everything, he might actually die of a heart attack. But the dreaded horrible sensation never came. Instead, the air went briefly still. As if something — no, someone — had stepped in the way.
When he cautiously opened his eyes, what filled his vision was a broad, solid back.
Kang Mujin had positioned himself in front of Eunseong, blocking the boss’s remains as they exploded outward in every direction with his own body and his sword.
……He blocked it for me?
Eunseong stared blankly at that back for a moment. Relief at being alive washed over him, alongside the impulse to look away and pretend he had no idea what was squelching beneath his feet. And somehow, at the same time, a sensation like his heart dropping came flooding in.
Wait. He just got hit with poison.
Worried, Eunseong unconsciously stepped half a pace closer and looked him over. At that moment, Kang Mujin slowly lowered his sword.
Hah….
[Tyrant’s Forced Awakening state ended.]
[Physical recoil from duration expiry has been nullified.]
As the skill’s effects lifted, all the sensations that had been suppressed came rushing back at once. His shoulder throbbed, and the skin where the poison had touched burned as if it had been seared.
Kang Mujin drew a rough breath and turned his head. Their gazes collided head-on. The dark eyes looking down at Eunseong were twisted in a strange expression.
He knew the weak point precisely. What is going on?
Baek Eunseong was not someone who cared about dungeon strategies. He had always been too busy charging recklessly into raids without even knowing what dungeon they were in, a coward who hid behind others and only threw out the final blow. The fact that Baek Eunseong knew the boss’s weak point struck Kang Mujin as deeply out of place.
Kang Mujin closed the distance until he was right up in Eunseong’s face, looking down at him. Even though he was his favorite character, Eunseong’s skin erupted in goosebumps as that figure — made to look even larger by his armor — drew nearer, dripping blood. The distance narrowed until their breaths could almost touch.
“Baek Eunseong.”
Kang Mujin asked in a low, growling voice.
“Why… didn’t you finish it yourself?”
Those eyes looked as though they could tear him apart at any second. Eunseong went white as a sheet, his lips parting wordlessly. In that moment, there had been no room to think about something like that.
…Because you looked like you were going to die!
Eunseong screamed inwardly and scrambled for an answer. The original Baek Eunseong would have stolen the last hit at precisely the right moment — but he was not that person.
More than anything, what was in front of him right now was Kang Mujin’s condition. Blood was dripping from a body with not a single uninjured spot, and the places the poison had touched were slowly melting away. The sight of it sent nausea surging up to his throat, and he forced himself to clench his teeth against it.
“……You smell.”
Eunseong averted his gaze and squeezed his eyes shut, his face pale and stiff. He couldn’t bear to look anymore — at Kang Mujin’s battered body, at the monster wreckage strewn across the ground.
But to Kang Mujin, it read entirely differently. The boss who never let so much as a speck of dust touch his pristine white clothes was disgusted at the sight of him, covered in blood.
Kang Mujin was on the verge of turning away.
“Wait.”
Eunseong reached into the air and retrieved a small glass vial from his inventory. His fingertips trembled faintly.
“Take this.”
He practically thrust it into Kang Mujin’s hand — a hand smeared with blood and monster fluids. The damp, slick sensation against his fingers made his stomach turn, but the only thought in Eunseong’s head was that he needed to get Kang Mujin healed as fast as possible.
Please just drink it and recover quickly!
Eunseong snapped his head to the side and bit down hard on his lip. His jaw trembled finely, and his throat clenched tight. He felt his vision beginning to blur. He urged Kang Mujin inwardly to drink it fast. If he stayed here any longer, he was genuinely going to pass out.
Kang Mujin stared blankly down at the palm-sized glass vial now in his hand.
[Elixir of Dawn (S)]
Rank: S-Rank
Category: Consumable item
Effects:
— Complete regeneration of destroyed mana circuits
— Recovery of critical physical damage
— Immediate purification of critical status effects
Limit: Single-use (disappears upon consumption)
It was an S-Rank Elixir of Dawn — something that even tens of billions couldn’t buy, known to bring back even those on the threshold of death.
A deep furrow formed between Kang Mujin’s brows.
Baek Eunseong was someone who had held the guild’s lower-ranked Hunters in contempt. For someone like that to hand over an S-Rank elixir — it was far too valuable an item to simply accept. There had to be some ulterior motive. There was no doubt about it.
“……Are you planning to put the cost of the elixir on my tab as a debt?”
Open revulsion settled in Kang Mujin’s eyes. It was the look of someone staring at something they wouldn’t mind killing on the spot.
“…Who said anything about money? Just drink it.”
“You’re giving me an Elixir of Dawn — an S-Rank one at that — for free?”
“Yes, just drink it!”
That was it. The words burst out of Eunseong’s mouth, almost like a cry. The stench of blood, the monster wreckage — all of it was unbearable to look at. But what he couldn’t stand even more than that was that Kang Mujin was badly hurt. He couldn’t just stand there and watch his favorite character suffer in front of him any longer.
A vein rose sharply across the back of Kang Mujin’s hand as he gripped the elixir. To his ears, Eunseong’s urgency landed as a sharp, irritable command. The crimson liquid swirling inside the translucent vial felt, to him, like the blood he had shed throughout his past life.
…He’s telling me to drink this.
If it had been before the regression, he would have bowed his head and said thank you. Back then, he had no choice but to submit before the enormous power that was the guild.
But now was different. He had too much of the weight of betrayal and the feeling of death embedded in his bones from his past life to accept this as pure goodwill. Yet he had no grounds to refuse a direct order from the boss.
Kang Mujin flicked off the stopper with his thumb and, without hesitation, tipped it into his mouth. The liquid that met his tongue was cold — but the moment it passed down his throat, it transformed into blazing heat and swept through his entire body.
[Destroyed mana circuits are recovering at high speed.]
[Damaged muscle tissue and nerve cells are regenerating.]
A brilliant light spread across Kang Mujin’s torn shoulder. The wound where flesh had been stripped away and bone laid bare knitted itself back together as if time were rewinding, new skin blooming in its place. The burns on his cheek, red and raw where the acidic poison had eaten into them, faded away cleanly. In just a few seconds, Kang Mujin’s ravaged body recovered to perfect condition, as if it had all been a lie.
Eunseong watched quietly, letting out a breath of relief inside.
Thank goodness. He won’t be in pain anymore. …Oh!
Only after watching Kang Mujin recover did the stench of blood hit him belatedly. He also realized that he had been watching flesh regenerate with his own eyes. Eunseong had to forcibly push back the stomach acid surging up his esophagus once more.
Ugh…! Why did I watch that.
It seemed his senses had gone temporarily numb from the extreme fear. Snapping back to his senses, Eunseong quickly pressed both hands over his mouth. He couldn’t throw up in front of his favorite character.
“…Clean this up.”
Eunseong forced down the dry heave threatening to escape, threw out the short order, and walked away without looking back.
Splat, splat. The sound of stepping through the sticky viscous fluid pooled underfoot sent chills through him to the bone. Filth had splattered onto the hem of his pristine white trousers, but he had no mental energy left to care about that now.
It was then. Team Leader Park, who had been hanging back and watching for his opportunity, sidled up with a servile expression.
“Sir! Thank goodness you’re safe. To think you stepped in personally like that… thanks to you, we all made it out unharmed. That’s our boss for you!”
“…….”
“But… giving an S-Rank elixir to a disposable like that. It’s far too generous.”
Eunseong’s footsteps stopped. Displeasure flickered across his colorless face. But the moisture at the corners of his eyes from fighting down the nausea, and his reddened, bloodshot eyes, read to the others as fury.
What? Kang Mujin is a disposable? This bastard, ever since earlier—!
To Eunseong, whose stomach had already been thoroughly turned inside out, those words were the worst possible insult — a slight against his favorite character. Even back when he was reading the original, he had loathed Team Leader Park more than anyone — that person who had cunningly pushed Kang Mujin toward death. A flash of rage momentarily suppressed his fear once again.
Eunseong lowered the hand covering his mouth and nose and fixed Team Leader Park with an icy stare.
“About my Hunter.”
“Pardon?”
“Watch your mouth.”
The low, weighted tone — pressed flat by tension and anger — reverberated quietly along the cave walls. It was a short few words, but the gravity packed into them bore down on the air all around. Not only Team Leader Park, but even the surrounding Hunters held their breath.
Team Leader Park, who had gone pale as a ghost, hunched his shoulders and bent at the waist.
“……I’m sorry. I overstepped my bounds….”
“Shut up.”
Eunseong irritably furrowed his brow. Even the sound of voices in his ears felt like noise. Without lingering any longer, he quickened his steps toward the blue gate.
Watching him go, a cold sneer tugged at the corner of Kang Mujin’s lips.
My Hunter.
That declaration — soaked in possession — that Eunseong had flung at Team Leader Park kept echoing in his ears. Kang Mujin received those words as a warning directed at himself.
Before the regression, Baek Eunseong had been someone who, even at the sight of a subordinate rolling on the ground with broken bones, wouldn’t so much as worry — he’d only furrow his brow in irritation. Healing was out of the question. He would shove people toward death even when they couldn’t hold themselves upright, and when they collapsed, he’d step right past them as if they were insects.
It means I’m useful enough that he wants to keep others from touching me.
The touch that had grazed his hand when the elixir was pressed into it had been revolting. But that faint trembling he had felt at the tips of those fingers kept snagging in his mind.
Kang Mujin stared fixedly at the blue gate Eunseong had passed through. The sweet aftertaste of the elixir on his tongue was already fading. But the cool body heat that lingered on his fingertips was slow to disappear.
