#53 Dungeon Companion (3)
#53 Dungeon Companion (3)
"What the..."
Unbelievable. There hadn't been that many monsters, but he'd wiped them out just like that? A wave of shadow surged, and every monster about to burst out of the cave vanished. The spearman had seen the Wolf when the Academy was attacked. It wasn't the little dog he was looking at now, but he distinctly remembered how it had wielded its shadows.
"......."
Back then, it had been incomprehensible—an overwhelming monster. Now it was completely beyond imagination. Simply put, it existed on a different plane. He'd heard it compared to a section-boss-level monster from Neverland — the worst dungeon in existence — but having never been to Neverland himself, the spearman couldn't gauge what that actually meant. Now he'd caught a glimpse of the monster's true edge.
"...Insane."
Watching the creature toy idly with the Fairy Dragon as if nothing had happened, the spearman twisted his grip on his spear shaft. ...Maybe it was a pathetic thought, but he realized he wasn't going to die here. He could fight without holding back.
"―――!"
The hunters weren't the only ones shocked. The Raihon, now grasping the true nature of the presence it had sensed inside the cave, swept its gaze around for an escape route. But at the sight of its pack — the ones that had already fled the dungeon — strewn about in ruin, it abandoned flight. Running meant death either way. If that was the case, better to exact some revenge on the ones who'd stolen its leg and eye before that monster stepped in. As the Superior Raihon and the four hunters squared off, the Wolf clicked its tongue.
'A shame...'
The level gap meant barely any experience came in. It was disappointing, but he had already worked out a plan for that and wasn't too worried about the experience.
The Raihon charged, and the hunters did the same. Missing a leg, its balance was off, and the fiercer it moved, the worse the bleeding got. They tried to widen the distance, thinking time was on their side, but the Raihon caught them in moments. When it launched itself on its hind leg alone and lunged, the spearman raised his spear to block. The weight and force drove his feet deep into the ground, but he summoned his mana and barely held.
"Now!"
At the spearman's shout, Lee Eun-ha chanted, and spikes shot up from the ground, piercing the Raihon's hind leg.
"Embiggen!"
An enlargement spell. The spike swelled in response, but Lee Eun-ha frowned. Even as it bore down on the spearman, the Raihon had shifted its weight onto its front leg and launched itself upward. With both legs intact, maybe — but with only one, that move should have been impossible. Overwhelming strength and the solid fulcrum of the spearman beneath it made it possible. The Raihon evaded the towering spike, then dropped its full weight back onto the spearman. The warrior slammed his shoulder into the Raihon to shove it aside and rescue him. By then, the spearman's shaft had warped beyond use. Both warrior and spearman were effectively unarmed.
Lee Eun-ha felt a twinge in her head, downed a potion, and hurled the bottle at the Raihon. She was a hunter, good enough to match any pro baseball player. The Raihon didn't blink. The glass shattered against its skull. Shards weren't going to wound it anyway.
"Are you alright?"
"Yeah. Just sore."
No injuries. The problem was that with no weapons, their means of stopping the Raihon had disappeared. The spearman drew a dagger like the warrior had, but they were throwing knives at best. Nobody in their right mind would think about stopping a monster like that with a dagger.
"From here on, we have to dodge."
The front line that was supposed to hold it off was gone. But the Raihon was staggering from blood loss, too. The hunters still had plenty of stamina. Kang Tae-ho nodded at that. They were almost there — push a little harder and it would fall. The warrior and spearman hurled their daggers from different angles. The Raihon couldn't dodge as easily as before. It twisted, snapped at the daggers with its jaws, but several punched through and lodged in deep.
"―――!"
The Raihon roared in fury. But when it surged forward, the archer's drawn bowstring — and the arrow that flew true — made chasing the hunters all but futile.
"Hm..."
The outcome already looked clear. Losing a hind leg was one thing, but losing a foreleg used for attacking was fatal. Kang Tae-ho gave a small nod and looked at Lee Eun-ha.
"She'd hold up even if you bumped her to C-class right now."
Hong Yuri taught her well — the talent was clearly there. The cowed expression she'd worn when first entering the dungeon was gone. Maybe she'd found her confidence. Or rather, it was because her baseline for dungeons was Neverland. However grim this Superior Raihon seemed, it was just one of countless monsters in Neverland. She'd already survived far worse, so she showed no sign of being rattled.
"Hm..."
Wasn't it said there was some bond between them? Perhaps this was what Alpha had wanted to see. The hunters scattered when the Raihon charged in a last desperate lung. Its target was obvious, but the one it was after had summoned some bizarre mount and was zipping around — impossible to catch. Eventually, the exhausted Raihon ground to a halt. The hunters kept a distance that was almost absurdly cautious. The archer's arrow punched through its forehead. Even then, he drew back the string once more to confirm the kill.
"It's dead."
Only then did they approach. They confirmed the Raihon's death and let out a collective sigh of relief. When they remembered the monsters that had fled in terror from the Raihon, they jolted — but Kang Tae-ho jerked his chin toward the surroundings. They saw the monsters lying dead here and there, and their relief redoubled.
"......."
They didn't need to ask whose work that was. By the time they'd collected the monster corpses and finished scouring the collapsed dungeon, dusk was already settling.
"Just this one left to move. I'm gonna go check that side, so Eun-ha, you..."
Lee Eun-ha's gaze looked oddly vacant. The spearman waved a hand in front of her eyes.
"Hey. You okay?"
"Huh? Yeah! I'm fine."
She answered, but her color didn't look good. She couldn't have been injured anywhere... As he looked at her in puzzlement, Lee Eun-ha shook her head as if it were nothing. After confirming the instruction to move the carcass, she grabbed the dead monster by its two legs and started dragging.
"......."
Bringing down a Superior Raihon was objectively a major success. Alpha hadn't moved at all during the boss fight. Whatever else could be said, that was a genuine achievement. Lee Eun-ha brooded on it, then shook her head. Finish the job in front of her first. Just as she thought that, she saw the Fairy Dragon fluttering toward her and let out an involuntary gasp of admiration.
"...Wow."
Beautiful light-powder glittered in the sunset glow. She stood transfixed until the Fairy Dragon, flying like a butterfly, came right up to her face.
"Kyuu~"
The sound snapped her back to her senses, and her eyes spun. She'd just come out of a dungeon — she was covered in blood and dust, and she fretted it might get dirty. Still grunting, Lee Eun-ha let go of the monster carcass and wiped the cold sweat from her forehead.
"—Good work."
The voice came from behind. Lee Eun-ha whirled around, flustered, and at the sight of Alpha, let out a relieved breath.
"Ah~ you scared me."
"How was the dungeon?"
The question came a little abruptly, but Lee Eun-ha gave a bitter smile. It was the same thing she'd been mulling over.
"...Was it that obvious?"
The Wolf nodded. Lee Eun-ha stroked the Fairy Dragon on her shoulder and answered.
"I'm not sure. But..."
"Are you frustrated?"
"......Yeah."
It was like it had peered straight into her head. The Wolf was right — she was frustrated. It might sound random, maybe even arrogant, but... the thought that if she did it again, she could do better. Wasn't there a better way? Could she have kept Alpha from having to step in? Those thoughts kept circling through her mind. When they surfaced again, she shook her head vehemently.
"Thank you. For helping..."
Without Alpha, the monsters that had rushed out during the fight would've been a disaster. And they never could've caught the monsters that fled before that in the first place. Lee Eun-ha, unaware that Kang Tae-jun had sent a bare-minimum team into the dungeon precisely to exploit Alpha, could only think that. The Wolf had already figured it out and considered the man a sly old snake.
"Don't worry about it."
In any case, his time staying at Dawn was now over. He hadn't grown close to every hunter, but at least he couldn't imagine anything adversarial with Dawn's members anymore. Even if friction arose with other hunters, he might be able to expect mediation.
'...Though it might be futile.'
Kang Tae-jun had said the investigation he'd left with them would be finished by the time he got back today. Whether they'd found anything, he didn't know. He'd figured the odds were about fifty-fifty. Whether there was something or nothing — honestly, neither outcome would be strange. Perry settled on the Wolf's back as it sank briefly into thought. The break was over. It had been a better stretch of time than expected. Alpha extended a tentacle and lifted the carcass Lee Eun-ha had been hauling.
"Huh? You don't have to help..."
"I'll leave the elixir... a little longer."
"Huh?"
As the Wolf's form receded, Lee Eun-ha murmured blankly.
"...Leaving?"
***
"Wow, this thing really won't fucking move."
They'd only taken the necessary byproducts like hides, and the trunk was so stuffed the car could barely go. After crawling along at the worst possible fuel efficiency until they found a gas station, they finally made it to the clan. By then, the night was deep.
"You guys head out first."
Kang Tae-ho stuffed the heavy byproducts into a large bag and carried them lightly into the clan building. Not that anyone was unwilling to help, but you couldn't exactly extend a tentacle outside the clan. Kang Tae-ho jerked his chin for them to go in first, and Alpha entered the building, keeping Perry out of sight as much as possible. Given the hour, most seemed to have already clocked out. As he climbed the stairs with Perry drowsily nodding off, he spotted a scarlet-haired girl flinch. Alpha idly extended a tentacle and gave her a little wave. By the time they reached the seventh floor, Kang Tae-jun was waiting as if he'd been expecting him.
"You're a little late."
If he'd been alone, he might have come ahead using Stealth, but with Perry along, that was difficult. Not that she couldn't follow on her own, of course. Kang Tae-jun handed over the documents. The Wolf exhaled a long breath, as though he were vomiting up an Appraisal.
"......."
—The signs had been there. No, there had been countless signs. The first time he'd felt that sense of wrongness was after clearing out the West Sea island. Traces beyond the bars. He hadn't even seen the scene himself, yet his emotions had boiled over. And the most recent one he'd felt...
'...Silent Mouth.'
The vision that had flashed through his mind when he fought that puppet. What he'd felt then was well beyond mere emotion. Memories had definitely flowed in. Emotions and memories transmitted. The intensity only grew worse by the day. By the time he'd seen that memory, he'd already understood the true identity of the System. But there were still questions that hadn't been resolved. Even for the sake of untangling those, the time had come to meet the System.......
The Wolf steadied its breathing and read through the documents.