So This Is Where You Were
“People say, huh? If you go and smash someone else’s shop, you damn well better pay for it before you leave!”
He wasn’t wrong.
It was also a punch-worthy thing to say.
Thwack—!
“Ah, crap.”
He’d only meant to think it. His fist flew out on its own anyway.
The owner of Eunryuhyeon didn’t even manage a scream. A fountain of blood sprayed from his nose as he toppled flat onto his back.
The NPCs flinched and shuffled a step backward. Every last one of them owned a building the Underground Dragon had brought down.
Inns. General stores. Private homes. Buildings that had been standing just fine that morning were now rubble, so he could roughly imagine how they felt.
That still didn’t mean they got to swarm him like this and start pressuring him. That just pissed him off.
“So what. What do you want me to do about it.”
“C-compensation…”
The man with the biggest guts among them opened his mouth, stammering.
“Compensation?”
Seong Yujin eyed him like the word itself was offensive, then let out a long, heavy sigh.
“How much do you need?”
“How much do you have, sir?”
Look at this bastard.
Yujin gave a hollow laugh and stared at him before answering.
“Tally up every last amount you need and tell me at once. I’ll cover it if I can.”
The unconscious innkeeper still gushing nosebleeds was thoroughly irritating, but a certain share of the blame sat on their side. He was the one who had fed them the Silver Snow Wine without stopping them in the first place. And hadn’t it been Vivian who dragged the Underground Dragon all the way here?
If they were going to divide fault, he and Vivian took a little more of it. So he had no intention of dodging responsibility.
Venting his irritation, of course, was a separate matter.
Crunch—!
“Urgh.”
Yujin casually stepped once on the unconscious owner, then turned away.
“We’ll be at Chwiwollu in the center of Unmonghyang. Once you’ve finished the tally, come find us there.”
“Ah—understood.”
The gutsy man nodded on behalf of the rest.
“Let’s go.”
Yujin took Park Ji-hoo and headed toward the city’s central plaza.
He could feel the street NPCs’ sidelong stares. Word had clearly already spread through the whole city. A section of the outskirts had been reduced to a wasteland, after all. A true dragon over fifty meters long had gone on a rampage; there was no one left who hadn’t seen it.
Under all that attention, they arrived at Chwiwollu.
“Ah, well now…”
The owner who had come bustling out with a bright smile at the sight of customers suddenly wore a strained look. He was clearly wondering whether his own place was about to get demolished next.
Instead of explaining, Yujin simply pulled a handful of credits from Chunbae’s mouth.
“Deposit. Take this and shut up.”
“Of course, of course! Welcome, welcome! Welcome to Chwiwollu!”
The moment the money appeared, the owner’s face transformed and he bowed and scraped.
“Bring out anything edible. And give us four rooms.”
“And wine…?”
“Skip it.”
Wine? After the mess they’d just been through? For the time being he wasn’t ordering so much as a single glass of beer.
“Understood. I’ll have everything prepared at once.”
“Rooms first. I need somewhere to dump these two.”
“This way, please.”
The owner barked a few dish orders toward the kitchen and headed straight for the back door.
“Wouldn’t a detached cottage be better than a regular guest room? Here at Chwiwollu we’re famous for the pond that holds the moonlight…”
He prattled on, boasting about his own inn. Yujin already knew the pitch. Even within Unmonghyang the place ranked among the top three for facilities. Eunryuhyeon might win on wine and atmosphere, but everything else here was superior. The detached cottages in particular were famous because of that moonlight-soaked pond. The only real downside was the price.
For the current Yujin, that was no obstacle at all. Thanks to the mountain of junk items he’d stockpiled, credits were piled high like a hill. That was the beauty of auto-hunting, wasn’t it? He’d kept the macros called the 3 No running nonstop, so of course the money had accumulated. That was exactly why he’d been able to agree to compensation so readily earlier. This whole affair would lighten his wallet a little, sure, but staying somewhere like this was still well within budget.
“Here we are.”
The owner led them to a small garden. In the center lay a pond steeped in moonlight, its form beautiful.
Yujin nodded.
Worth the reputation.
A place that earned its steep price.
“Please enjoy a comfortable stay.”
The owner bowed and withdrew.
“Dump them in the rooms one by one and come out. We’re eating.”
Yujin opened the nearest door and tossed Vivian onto the bed. Watching drool trickle from the corner of her mouth, he shut the door with a scowl.
Click.
Park Ji-hoo came out at the same time.
“Let’s eat.”
When they left the cottage, the dishes were already waiting. Nothing special—Chwiwollu had made its name on atmosphere and wine rather than cuisine to begin with. The two of them sat down roughly and started eating. Exhaustion kept their forks moving without pause.
They were just beginning to fill their stomachs when—
“So this is where you were.”
The inn door opened and someone walked in.
The fly, and the junkie.
Jane and Logan, the couple.
“What the hell is that?”
A monster had suddenly revealed itself in the distance—a colossal lifeform neither of them had ever seen before.
“A boss?”
“Why would a boss suddenly show up over there?”
They had no idea. They’d been about to shake out every last coin they had for a decent inn and rest when something started thundering and stomping, and then that thing appeared.
Even at a considerable distance, Jane’s whole body trembled. Overwhelming mana. If it felt this terrifying from here, what about the people near it? Hadn’t they been crushed flat without even managing to breathe? The image of people turned into jerky rose unbidden.
“…Should we run?”
Logan asked. The other three members of their group had bolted the instant they saw the monster. Jane wasn’t particularly hurt by that. She had never truly considered them companions to begin with.
What filled her mind instead was a single question: who on earth was fighting that thing?
KRAAAAAASH—!
When the creature stamped its foot, the city was pulverized. Dust clouds rose like fog and screams erupted.
“They’re fighting it right now, aren’t they?”
This wasn’t simple destruction. It was clearly targeting someone and attacking.
Could it be…
A few faces flickered through Jane’s mind. Seong Yujin. Park Ji-hoo. Vivian. And—
Lee Sia.
The woman who had casually overtaken Jane when Jane had been certain no one could match her speed.
Seong Yujin was so far beyond the wall that Jane felt nothing at all about him. No one looked up at the clouds and got angry that they floated higher, did they? Anyone who did would be insane.
Lee Sia was different. She wasn’t the clouds. If Jane pushed just a little harder, she felt like she might reach her—at least in speed. Sia’s actual combat power was a level Jane didn’t dare measure herself against.
Still.
The thought that she might win in pure speed kept tickling the back of her mind.
“Let’s go take a look.”
“What? Are you crazy?”
Logan recoiled at Jane’s words. Ordinarily he was the optimistic type who figured everything would work out somehow. Even he had limits. Walking toward a place with a monster like that for a sightseeing trip was not one of them.
“Then we split up.”
“Jane!”
“Come with me or we part ways. Choose.”
When she put it like that, Logan only had one option left.
“…Fine. Let’s go.”
He took her hand with a sigh.
“But promise me. If it gets dangerous, we run without looking back. Got it?”
Worry filled Logan’s face. He was terrified of getting dragged into something irreversible.
“You know me. You really think I can’t dodge?”
“I know. I know perfectly well. Still promise me.”
His voice was serious. He didn’t want idle curiosity to produce a result they could never take back.
“Okay. I promise.”
Jane nodded. Logan exhaled in relief and activated his skill.
Skill Enhancement [D]
Jane clasped Logan’s hand and stamped her foot.
Instant Acceleration [D]
Their forms stretched long and thin as they crossed Unmonghyang in a single breath. Even in a city that vast, the place where the monster had appeared was only a blink away.
And then they saw it.
Seong Yujin standing on the back of a dragon that had neither eyes nor mouth, swinging his sword like a bolt of light.
Slash—!
Scales that looked as if they wouldn’t even scratch under a missile strike parted like melted butter. The neck severed with absurd ease, and the severed head crashed to the ground.
BOOOOOM—!
It was so heavy that the earth where the head struck dented deep.
“Holy shit…”
A curse slipped from Logan’s mouth. A boss monster that looked at least fifty meters long. Was that something a person could kill with a single sword? No—was the thing that made it possible even human?
Jane and Logan couldn’t even think of moving. They simply stared, dumbfounded, at Seong Yujin and the dragon head that stretched more than ten meters.
A moment later they watched him and Park Ji-hoo pick up two unconscious women and leap into the enormous hole.
“Huh?”
Logan recovered first and pointed.
“Let’s follow them!”
Their solemn promise turned out to be pointless—the danger vanished the same moment they arrived. Curiosity took its place.
Logan and Jane sprinted toward the hole. They couldn’t go any farther. The shaft was simply too deep. They couldn’t even bring themselves to jump.
“…Think they survived?”
“Who knows.”
An ordinary person could never survive a fall like that. But Seong Yujin? No matter how hard she thought, Jane couldn’t picture him dying.
“Let’s wait.”
Jane said. Until they climbed back out.
They waited a long while, then returned briefly to their lodging to gather their things. It looked like it would take longer than expected. In that short window, however, word reached them that the group had already come back up. They asked around about where the four had gone next. Tracking them was not difficult—every NPC in Unmonghyang had their eyes fixed on them.
And so they arrived at Chwiwollu, the inn so expensive they themselves had given up on staying there.
Jane slowly pushed the door open. Seong Yujin and Park Ji-hoo were shoveling food into their mouths.
“So this is where you were.”
Seong Yujin looked their way. Not a shred of real interest—a thoroughly blank expression. Just the mild curiosity of Why is she here?
Jane drew a deep breath.
Why did I come to see this man?
Simple curiosity? That was part of it, of course. But not all of it. There was a more serious, more important reason.
Jane polished and repolished the thought she had been turning over for so long, then spoke to Seong Yujin with the most respectful attitude she could manage.
“Please let me join your party as well.”
“No.”