#16. Cobalt Mine? No, Cobalt Dungeon! (3)
#16. Cobalt Mine? No, Cobalt Dungeon! (3)
Gu Sang-seop's judgment was swift and precise.
He knew he couldn't win. He recognized there wasn't enough time to retrieve the scroll. Without hesitation, he moved to flee. I was blocking the passage to the entrance, so Gu Sang-seop charged straight at me, looking as if he'd already resigned himself to taking the hit.
'He's fast.'
His Strength was 214. His Agility was 162. And me? After hitting Level 18, my Strength sat at 120 and Agility at 136.
'This is going to hurt.'
Stat-wise, anyway. As a hunter, he had skills of his own, but honestly, I didn't think he had as many as I did.
'Not arrogance. A fact.'
In this world, you couldn't check your own Level and Status, but you could check your skill list. The number of beings who possessed skills like mine could be counted on one hand. And I was certain Gu Sang-seop wasn't one of them.
"Get out of my way!"
At Gu Sang-seop's shout, I used the morphing ability built into Change, inflating my body until I covered the entire passage. The trade-off was that the wider I stretched, the thinner I became.
[Hardening (D) Lv.3 proficiency has reached its maximum. Hardening (D) Lv.3 → Hardening (D) Lv.4]
Conveniently, Hardening leveled up at exactly the right moment.
"Huh?"
Gu Sang-seop let out a baffled breath at my transformed appearance. He didn't stop. His shortsword, gripped in both hands, stabbed straight through me and punched a hole clean through.
"...Fuck."
And yet it was him who looked defeated. With a Strength of 214, Gu Sang-seop definitely had the power to break through me—if only the orc roaring behind him hadn't been closing in. He yanked his shortsword free, but by then, it was already half-broken.
[Satiety has reached its maximum. Via Evil Devouring (D) Lv.3, Satiety is converted into Experience Points.]
'HOOOOUUURRP—!'
Thank you for the meal.
True to its nature, Evil Devouring kicked in and I chewed him up, grinding him down. Gu Sang-seop's eyes went wide. He stared back and forth between his half-shattered blade and me with sheer disbelief before dropping and rolling across the floor.
"Gu-guruk?!"
With the orc and kobold closing in, the kobold flinched when it noticed the orc running right alongside it.
'...That thing is genuinely pitiful. Once I take care of Gu Sang-seop, I'll let it live.'
I used Detection in the meantime and found that his party members—the archer and the warrior—had failed to link up with each other and were both sprinting toward the dungeon entrance. A good sign.
'Doesn't look like they plan on coming back.'
For now, at least. If this dragged on, who knew what could happen. The last surviving kobold drew its bowstring taut toward Gu Sang-seop, who was rolling wildly across the ground, and then—threw the bow?!
'Ah.'
Right. I'd given it the bow but no arrows. The kobold's throwing aim was atrocious, and Gu Sang-seop, even as he tumbled, caught the bow. The sight of him snagging it as easily as if he were playing catch made my blood boil.
'The hell?'
He brushed against the quiver, and a click sounded as if he'd pressed a button. Gu Sang-seop pulled out an arrow and launched it at the orc—yeah, right, like he had the time for that.
"GUOOOOO!"
As he kicked off the ground, Gu Sang-seop displayed impressive skill, hammering an arrow into the orc's thigh. With his bare hands.
'He's a decent fighter.'
He wasn't a hunter for nothing. If it had been just one orc, he might have beaten it and escaped. But when the kobold lunged at him from behind, his feet got tangled up for a moment.
"KUOOOOO!"
The enraged orc's battle axe shaved the air just over his head. Gu Sang-seop hurled the kobold aside and opened some distance, wiping sweat from his forehead. He shot a glare my way, but I felt no particular need to move.
'...How amusing.'
Too bad I didn't have popcorn. I'd always fought desperately myself, so the idea of standing back as a spectator and reaping the rewards later made my chest swell with... grandeur.
'I hope Gu Sang-seop puts up a good fight.'
Ideally, he'd leave the orc on the verge of death. Unlikely, but if they took each other out, that'd be the best of the best.
[Short-Range Teleportation Scroll consumed. MP increases by 1.]
'?'
An unexpected message. I checked my Status window and saw my MP had risen from 91 to 92.
'It copies MP?'
Astonishing. From now on, any scroll I found, I was going to eat.
'My MP's going to pass 100 soon, isn't it?'
Gu Sang-seop kept dodging desperately, but a spear eventually pierced him. Even as it did, he stabbed out the kobold's eyes with a ferocious killing intent that was nothing short of extraordinary. A ferocious attachment to life, surging from somewhere I couldn't identify. That was what kept Gu Sang-seop going.
"You goddamn pig bastard!"
With his monstrous Strength of 214, Gu Sang-seop did something almost unimaginable. He lifted the kobold—using the two fingers he'd jabbed into its eye sockets.
"Gu-guruk?!"
"GUOOOOO!"
Riiip! The kobold was torn in half. Gu Sang-seop hurled the kobold's upper body, which had served as a fine shield, and drove his broken blade into the orc's thigh.
'Ah. The kobold...'
The blade, driven deep, must have pierced the orc's artery. Blood spurted out, but the orc didn't retreat a single step. It just swung its massive axe wildly.
"Keuhk!"
The sheer force sheared Gu Sang-seop's hand clean off at the wrist. If he hadn't blocked with his bow, it wouldn't have ended with just that.
'...Nice.'
I knew this was a scummy thing to do. I knew I was rationalizing it. But still... Gu Sang-seop needed to die here.
'I can't let Gwangmyeonghoe collapse.'
The kobold that had kept its distance during their fierce fight lost its nerve and fled. It looked like it was about time to wrap this up.
'The orc first.'
I was confident I wouldn't lose to Gu Sang-seop one-on-one. But I couldn't say the same about the orc. I used Stealth to creep up behind the two locked in brutal combat and draped myself over the orc's face.
"Huff, huff. H-Huh?!"
Gu Sang-seop, panting heavily, looked up at me. The orc struggled desperately to tear me off, trying to keep me from suffocating it. But it had lost too much blood from its artery, and a body pushed past its limits can only produce so much force.
'This is manageable.'
While I briefly held the orc at bay, Gu Sang-seop clenched his teeth, broke away, and fled. His left hand streamed blood, his eyes wide open.
'Not toward the passage?'
Had he lost the ability to think rationally? The direction he was running was deeper into the dungeon. Heading for the exit wasn't enough—he was going further in? There were limits to suicidal behavior.
'Does he have some kind of angle?'
It puzzled me, but he couldn't possibly have another teleportation scroll...
'...Wait, is he trying to pull more adds?'
Was his plan to get the monsters to check each other while he made his escape? If he played it just right, he might slip through... A long shot, but he was probably gambling on that slim chance.
'Let him try.'
As if that would work.
I knew. I knew exactly how shitty this world was. How fucking awful the monsters were.
'If it worked that easily, would hunters even die?'
I tracked Gu Sang-seop's position with Detection and smell while I tightened my grip on the orc's throat. Its brute strength should have been enough to tear me off, but I held on through a somewhat gruesome method.
'Evil Devouring.'
I used Evil Devouring to digest the orc's face itself. The first thing to melt was its eyes. I slowly burrowed into the empty sockets, and before long, I had encroached upon the orc's entire skull, dissolving it from both inside and out.
'...Hm. Grotesque.'
The orc soon stopped breathing. No matter how tough a monster was, it couldn't survive losing its brain—no, its entire head.
[Orc consumed. Experience Points and Satiety increase.]
[Experience Points have reached their maximum. Lv.18 → Lv.19]
[Empty Stomach (E) Lv.9 proficiency has reached its maximum. Empty Stomach (E) Lv.9 → Empty Stomach (E) Lv.10]
[Empty Stomach (E) Lv.10 has reached its maximum level. Empty Stomach (E) Lv.10 → Appetite (D) Lv.1]
[Lv.20 Achievement Condition: Acquire 0.1% or more Karma.]
'Appetite?'
Empty Stomach had finally hit Level 10 and transformed into Appetite. A D-rank skill. What kind of ability was it?
[Appetite: A greedy craving for food.]
'......?'
I opened my eyes wide and reread the description. It was exactly the same. A painfully ordinary description. Just what I already knew the word to mean. Unlike when Devouring had evolved into Evil Devouring, there didn't seem to be any hidden function.
'I'll think about it later.'
First, Gu Sang-seop. As I'd expected, he had brought adds. Insane, suicidal behavior—but if you were going to die anyway, the impulse to try anything was almost admirable. It had failed, of course.
'Lunatic.'
Two enormous birds were chasing him. They looked a bit like ostriches, but didn't old animal encyclopedias have something called terror birds? The resemblance was strong.
[Terror Devourer]
[Body Length: 2.5m] [Shoulder Height: 1.46m] [Weight: 196kg]
[STR 134] [AGI 169] [VIT 201]
'...They're seriously huge.'
He'd managed to drag those things back with him in that short time. Gu Sang-seop glanced back, then roughly wrapped his severed wrist with his shirt to stanch the bleeding and circled back toward the passage.
'You think that'll work?'
Even if the Agility numbers were similar, comparing a man running to a horse galloping wasn't possible. And unsurprisingly, the two terror birds caught up to Gu Sang-seop in the blink of an eye.
'See? Not so easy, is it?'
"Ngh! You piece of shit!"
Gu Sang-seop's threats did nothing. The terror birds pecked at his entire body, and their razor-sharp beaks punched hole after hole without fail.
"You fuck!"
Gu Sang-seop resisted as best he could, but realizing it was hopeless, he swung his snapped shortsword. The terror bird sneered—but this time, the outcome was different.
"KIIIEEEEK!"
The pursuing terror bird's neck was half-severed, spraying a fountain of blood as it collapsed. He must have used the magical power he'd been saving.
"Damn it—! This isn't how it was supposed to go! God fucking dammit!"
He'd probably planned to lure some manageable monsters back and dump them on me. But he'd been stupid and overlooked two things. One, the terror birds were far faster than he'd imagined.
'And two, it wouldn't have mattered even if he'd brought them.'
I could just hide with Stealth and that would be that. Part of me wondered what would have happened if he'd just fought me one-on-one from the start, but it was too late. Like most things in this world, plans rarely go the way you think they will.
'Idiot.'
In the end, he'd been forced to kill both terror birds with his own hands—the very ones he'd lured in. Hoist by his own petard, as they say. Panting, Gu Sang-seop couldn't see me, so he headed for the passage with a sliver of hope.
"Damn it."
He must have sensed my presence. With a hollow look, he stared up at the ceiling.
"Ha... I had a feeling it'd be like this..."
He wasn't an exceptional hunter, but he wasn't stupid. He wasn't dim enough to fall for Stealth twice after being tricked once. If you knew it was there and stayed alert, even an ordinary hunter seemed able to see through my Stealth.
'...Or maybe Gu Sang-seop just has good instincts.'
As if he still hadn't given up, Gu Sang-seop slowly raised his sword.
"Just you. If I can just break through you!"
I didn't bother to dodge. His blade pierced my throat. For a fleeting moment, a flush of hope crossed Gu Sang-seop's face—then it died, turning pitch-black.
"...You're not. A Warg."
He had no strength left. His magical power was completely drained. All he could do was wait for death. His shortsword dropped, clattering against the floor. Even if I left him alone now, he'd grow cold and die soon enough.
"Why... me?"
Gu Sang-seop's last question was about the reason I was killing him. I steadied myself for a moment. Without changing my form, I let language flow from the Wolf's mouth. Needless to say, it was the power of Change.
"Be... cause."
"......You talk? You can talk?"
"You. Needed. To die. Because. You needed. To."
Awkward speech sounds spilled from my mouth, even to my own ears. Gu Sang-seop, slumped on the ground and staring up with a dumbfounded expression, twisted his face.
"Because... I needed to die?"
"......"
"Why! Why do I have to die! I, fuck! I've got things to..."
Strangely, what felt more unnatural than his screaming was the fact that language—my own words—were coming out so awkwardly.
After shouting for a long while and getting no answer, Gu Sang-seop seemed to give up. He hung his head and muttered.
"Ha. What a shit day this turned out to be."
I didn't wait any longer. I saw him off to his end.
"...Guess I should. Bury you. At least."
I calmly wiped the blood from my claws.
My first kill—and it didn't hit me as much as I'd thought it would.
Silently, I began to dig into the earth.
[Destruction Probability 99.97% → 99.93%]
[0.04% Karma acquired.]
Just silently. I dug, and dug again.
***
"That bastard Sang-seop's taking way too long..."
Twenty minutes had already passed and he still hadn't come out. He even had a scroll.
"Don't tell me the scroll was a scam."
"You idiot. We bought them from the same place. If it was a scam, you and I would still be in the dungeon too."
"No, something's weird. Those adds showing up out of nowhere? What if someone's pulling some shit?"
"That hunter was guarding the entrance. How much money do you think we spent?"
The archer said it, but even he wasn't sure. One thing he did know: when you're left alone in a dungeon, your survival rate is inversely proportional to how long you stay. Twenty minutes in—if that was all—the probability he was dead was still low.
"Hey. Let's report this first."
"Going in there..."
"He'll come out soon enough. Why go in? Let's just report it and wait a little longer."
But Gu Sang-seop never came back out of the dungeon. Never again.
***
"Of all things to leave behind."
Who the hell forgot their phone and just went home? Woo-taek grumbled about having to come all the way back to the clan building because of it. He was just about to head out when—
"......?"
A huge crash echoed up from the basement. It was past quitting time. Who was still here? Woo-taek went downstairs and found the training ground in complete shambles.
"They did this to the place?"
It wasn't really a problem. The walls were made of carbon-steel alloy, giving them excellent strength and ductility, and they'd been enchanted with a self-repair spell commissioned from the Square. The only drawback was that you had to have it inspected and maintained once every six months.
'It takes a lot to do this kind of damage.'
Who could have made a mess like this? Woo-taek frowned briefly, then spotted Eun-ha crouched in a corner.
"What are you doing here?"
"...Huh? Senior? You haven't gone home yet?"
Tilting her head with a puzzled look. She hadn't even noticed someone had come in, which meant she was in really bad shape.
"Forgot my phone. What about you?"
"Just... practicing? If I don't use my MP, it feels like it keeps shrinking."
"This late?"
"Why? Are you impressed?"
"...Did you do that?"
The damage was already half-repaired, but the original marks had been seriously impressive. Woo-taek couldn't even say for sure whether he himself could've done it. How on earth?
"Ah. Yeah."
Eun-ha answered without expression, then seemed to think for a moment before murmuring very quietly.
"—If I work hard, they might let me join the Alpha (Jirisan Warg) search, you know?"
"Huh?"
In that brief instant, Woo-taek felt an inexplicable chill, but he dismissed it as his imagination.
'Maybe I haven't been sleeping enough lately.'
"Anyway, aren't you hitting mental exhaustion by now? Go home and sleep, you idiot. Don't be late for work tomorrow. Take it easy. You hear me?"
"Yeah, yeah~ nag, nag. I said I got it."
"What about the others? All clocked out?"
"Probably? If there's no mission, it's 5 p.m. sharp out the door, isn't it?"
Hunters didn't distinguish between weekdays and weekends, day and night, but occasionally there were times with no missions. Those were the only golden seasons. The brief periods each year when you could actually use your meager vacation days.
—For the personnel who hadn't been assigned to the Alpha (Jirisan Warg) search, anyway.
"...Well. Got it. You can get home on your own?"
"Don't worry. I didn't go that hard~."
"It's good to see you working hard, though. I'm heading out first."
"What's this? Getting a compliment from you, Senior?"
Outside the clan building, it was night, so it was dark and quite chilly.
[21:06]
"It's already 9?"
Well, Jirisan was a long way from here, so that made sense. Woo-taek accepted it and unlocked his phone's lock screen.
People around him called him a workaholic, but Woo-taek was human too—he got tired. Time to go home and eat something.
"Let's see..."
Belatedly, the thought crossed his mind—just how long had Lee Eun-ha been holed up in the training ground?—but as he scrolled through a food delivery app, he soon forgot all about it.