Why Isn't It Ending?
You never truly know what the inside of a dungeon looks like until you step through the gate yourself.
That rule, however, applies strictly to unmapped territory. In a repeatable dungeon like the one we had just entered—a stable zone that had already been conquered and cleared countless times before—the interior layout was laid out bare for anyone to see.
"Let's see. At this fork... we go right."
Poly, currently acting as our human GPS navigation system up front, held up his smartphone with Hunter Map running on the screen. The dedicated application displayed real-time mapping and coordinates within pre-cleared repeatable dungeons. How on earth did GPS satellite signals penetrate deep into an alternate dimensional pocket? Don't ask me. I haven't the faintest clue.
"Monsters should be appearing shortly," Poly warned, keeping his gaze ahead. "Get ready."
"...Me?"
"I mean step back another pace or two. It's the universal rule of thumb for supporters to stay in the rear."
Fair enough.
It was a vital fact I couldn't afford to forget: my role in this party was strictly to click a button and dish out buffs, not to serve as the main damage dealer.
We pressed deeper into the pitch-black cavern, relying solely on the beam of a phone flashlight. Near the periphery of our vision, a handful of familiar silhouettes stepped forward to greet us.
Yes. Familiar.
Bipedal monsters with reptilian heads—Lizardmen.
They were the exact same monsters that had slaughtered my parents right before my eyes during the Dungeon Break eight years ago.
Ugh.
A sudden weakness struck my knees, causing me to stumble hard.
"Are you all right?!" Poly asked, catching my wobble with startled eyes.
Fighting to steady my footing, I forced out a clipped reply. "Ah... yes."
"Please say so if it's too rough. We can take a break."
"I'm fine."
I had known a day like this would come eventually, but I never imagined it would be so soon.
...
I reached into my pocket, pulled out a pill, and swallowed it dry without water. It was medication I normally took after dinner, but taking it now seemed like the wiser choice. Staring down the trauma I had spent years actively avoiding was still far from easy, even in this transformed body.
Smack!
I brought both palms together and struck my soft cheeks with the force of a sharp clap.
Pull it together.
This was no time to drown in sentimental self-pity. Consider it shock therapy to snap myself wide awake.
"Here they come. Combat ready," Poly muttered, unsheathing the greatsword slung at his waist.
About five paces behind him, I summoned a glass butterfly to assist him.
"So that's your skill, Vid. What does it do?"
"Buffs, attacks. Both."
"C-Could you explain a little more specifically...?"
"Front."
Foregoing any tedious, pedantic explanations, I sent the butterfly fluttering forward and latched it straight onto his back.
Almost simultaneously, a lizardman lunged from the gloom ahead.
"Ugh!"
Despite his grumbled groan, Poly dodged the strike with practiced ease. Backstepping cleanly, he swung his greatsword in a wide arc. A crackle of lightning sparked along the weapon's trajectory.
Flash!
The lizardman was cleanly bisected into lizard/man. Horizontally, no less.
"...?!"
Apparently, he hadn't expected such devastating results from his own swing. The look of sheer stupefaction on his face was quite a sight.
"Zoning out? Still?" I prodded.
"N-No! Going back in!"
Now came our counterattack. Poly kicked off the cavern floor, barreling straight toward the three remaining lizardmen that hissed in wary apprehension. The monsters scrambled to raise their guard, but they were far too late.
Slash! Flash!
Three cleaves, accompanied by three bursts of lightning.
And just like that, three more lizard/men joined the pile.
"What on earth is this...?"
While Poly stood there dumbfounded, a bestial shadow slunk silently behind him. It turned out one loner lizardman had shunned the pack, choosing instead to lie in ambush.
"Ack!"
"Watch out...!"
The instant its presence was discovered, the lizardman surged toward Poly without hesitation. Man, why is this guy so spacing out? Of all times, he had to let his greatsword droop toward the floor right now. It was already too late for him to parry or raise a guard.
Butterfly, detach and stick to the lizardman!
Fortunately, my butterfly was already perched on his back, primed and ready to hop targets at my command.
"Krrr-k?!"
At my mental cue, the butterfly took flight from Poly's back and darted onto the lizardman's shoulder. A gentle landing—yet the consequences were anything but gentle.
The lizardman froze mid-swipe, its outstretched claws suspended in the air.
Crack... Shatter!
From the first hairline fracture to complete crystalline collapse, it took a mere three seconds.
"T-Thank you so much!" Only then snapping back into a defensive stance, Poly hurriedly stammered his gratitude.
"Don't mention it."
He was definitely a bit spaced-out, but he didn't seem like a bad guy.
"Let's catch our breath for a second before moving on. There's... something I need to think through."
"Sure."
I readily accepted his proposal. It gave the medication some time to kick in, which suited me just fine.
C-rank Hunter, Poly, greatsword damage dealer. Real name: Jang Seong-hyeon.
Lately, he hadn't been able to show his face around his guild. The reason was a bitter dispute with an ex-guildmate. As the title suggested, the member who had fought with him inside a dungeon promptly quit the guild without another word. If that had been all, it wouldn't have been the end of the world. But there was a catastrophic catch: the member who had walked out after their shouting match happened to be the guild's one and only auxiliary mage.
"You crazy son of a bitch! Didn't I tell you to rein in that rotten temper of yours?! It's a supporter! A supporter! No matter how much they piss you off or rub you the wrong way, you treat them like royalty! Is that so damn hard?! You couldn't manage that one simple thing, and now look at this mess you've made!"
He had absorbed every curse known to man from the guildmaster, who was two years his senior.
Seong-hyeon felt genuinely wronged by the whole ordeal. The supporter had undeniably started the fight. That idiot was the one who cast the buffs late in the first place, only to turn around and screech at him for being sluggish. So Seong-hyeon had merely fired back with a single line: 'Cast your damn buffs on time, you fucking tool.'
Admittedly, he conceded that his wording was a tiny bit harsh—an old habit left over from his League of Legends days. But look at where it had landed him. Every single thing, from start to finish, was suddenly pinned entirely on him.
After fuming for what felt like hours, the guildmaster had delivered his final ultimatum:
"I'm giving you exactly one month. Find a new supporter willing to join our guild within that time. If you produce zero results after a month? You're paying every cent of the penalty fee that runaway supporter was supposed to pay. And then you get the hell out of my guild. Got it?"
"...Yes, hyung-nim."
Just like that, he had been saddled with a one-month deadline.
For the first two days, swallowed by a toxic mix of indignation and despair, he had called out his buddies and drowned himself in alcohol around the clock. But on the third day, once the hangover subsided, clarity struck him like a bolt of lightning.
I have to find a new supporter as fast as humanly possible...
Seong-hyeon was painfully aware of his mediocre skills. He knew that if he was kicked out of this guild, he would have nowhere left to go. Truth be told, his current guild was already the third one he had landed in after getting booted from two others. The guildmaster's condition was strictly to recruit 'a supporter willing to join the guild.' That meant it could be interpreted as: combat prowess, personality, and experience didn't matter in the slightest.
Let's look for a total newbie. Someone who has zero guild or party experience.
There was sound reasoning behind Seong-hyeon's strategy. First off, a newbie who had only recently awakened was far less likely to harbor the notorious elitism and entitlement endemic to the supporter class. Since Seong-hyeon would inevitably have to coordinate and clear dungeons alongside the new recruit anyway, he naturally preferred someone with a decent character. Furthermore, newbies were completely ignorant of party dynamics and guild ecosystems. That meant there was ample room to ruthlessly lowball them on contract clauses, annual salary, and revenue splits during recruitment.
And so, for an entire week, he frequented the Hunter Association and obsessively searched the Hunter Gallery forums with keywords like 'newbie,' 'beginner,' 'first time,' and 'supporter.' Finally, he stumbled upon someone who seemed to have freshly awakened as an auxiliary mage.
An anonymous question thread.
The poster's speech pattern was curiously clipped and abrupt, but they were unmistakably the greenhorn he had been scouring the boards for. He immediately shot over a private message offering a free dungeon bus carry. His true agenda, of course, was entirely separate: once they cleared the dungeon, he planned to guide her to a nearby café and slide a guild contract right in front of her.
On the day of their meetup, however, Seong-hyeon's grand scheme was shattered twice over.
The first shockwave hit the moment he heard the codename of the supporter who arrived at the rendezvous—a breathtakingly gorgeous girl.
...Vid? Seriously?
Why hadn't that crossed his thick skull earlier? The newly awakened supporter standing before him and the mystery auxiliary mage who had obliterated the 1st Floor record of the Abyss... could actually be the exact same person.
The second tremor that rocked his resolve came the moment they began clearing the dungeon in earnest.
"What on earth is this...?"
The muttered exclamation slipped past his lips involuntarily.
Four medium-sized lizardmen.
Monsters that normally required at least two to three solid strikes each to put down were being diced apart as effortlessly as slicing onions. It was the direct result of the translucent butterfly perched on his back, summoned by Vid—Jeong Gyeoul.
The immediate stat enhancements he felt were attack power, durability, and agility. What was more, with every successful strike, he felt a surge of mana restoring his capacity for lightning skills. Not only was the sheer number of buffs absurd, but the amplification values were staggering. It was an output magnitude utterly unfathomable for someone who had just awakened.
An even more appalling spectacle followed immediately after.
"Ack!"
"Watch out...!"
A lizardman had ambushed him from behind while his attention drifted. As he desperately hauled his grounded greatsword upward, Seong-hyeon braced himself for impact, knowing he'd have to endure at least a minor flesh wound.
Instead—
Crack... Shatter!
"......??"
The lizardman broke. Literally, like a pane of glass smashed by a boulder. It happened the instant the butterfly detached from his back and settled onto the monster's shoulder.
After calling for a brief rest, Seong-hyeon had sunk deep into contemplation.
Auxiliary mage. Vid. Jeong Gyeoul.
Zero dungeon experience, one Abyss run. Yet she wielded peerless buffing abilities alongside lethal offensive potential never seen in any supporter. She was by no means a talent meant to be bound to a dinky, second-rate guild like his.
How was he supposed to view such a rising titan?
A gullible mark to trick for the sake of saving his own skin? Absolutely out of the question. While pitching guild recruitment remained on the table, the terms had to change completely. The best possible treatment. The absolute maximum ceiling his guild could afford. And even if she turned down the offer, that couldn't be the end of it. He had to build a glowing impression and secure an amicable relationship no matter what.
At the end of the day, the hunter industry was a network-driven society. Connections formed during one's fledgling days could endure for years—even decades.
"Vid-nim, is there anything uncomfortable? Anything you need?"
"...Why so sudden?"
From that moment on until they reached the final sector, Seong-hyeon squeezed every drop of nonexistent sociability out of himself, bending over backward to cater to Gyeoul's every convenience. He treated her like an honored VIP or an esteemed superior. Given his habitual contempt toward supporters and his track record of posting venomous rants on the Hunter Gallery, it was an astonishing transformation.
Deep down, he harbored a desperate hope: driving away the guild's sole supporter, being pushed to the brink of unemployment—perhaps this fateful day could turn all of that misfortune into a blessing in disguise.
Yet there was one fact he did not know. And one fact that even Gyeoul, clearing the dungeon alongside him, had no way of knowing.
Sometimes, catastrophe stems from the smallest of coincidences.
During that short breather, a stray thought had crossed my mind.
Wouldn't it be nice to have more offensive skills?
If any other supporter heard that, they'd probably stare at me like I had lost my mind and ask what kind of bullshit I was spewing. But hear me out.
My current skill kit was egregiously simplistic. Naturally so, considering I only had a single skill, but still. Butterfly flies over. Butterfly latches onto the enemy. Enemy cracks and shatters. The end.
Formidable as it was, it came with glaring shortcomings.
First was the butterfly's flight speed. If an enemy moved drastically faster than the butterfly and could outrun its trajectory, its offensive efficiency plummeted. Second was the time required to execute an attack. Masked beneath its sheer destructive power, it was ultimately damage-over-time. If I encountered an enemy sturdy enough to endure longer than three seconds, I'd get pulverized by a counterattack before the crystallization finished. Then again, was the Shatter Attribute even affected by an enemy's durability? I couldn't say for sure just yet.
Lastly, the maximum number of butterflies I could deploy. Even after leveling up, my cap remained fixed at two. If I designated one for offense and one for buffs, my reserves dried up instantly. If two or three enemies swarmed me at once, responding would be a nightmare.
Hence, the inevitable conclusion: I needed an offensive skill that was faster, more efficient, or possessed wide area-of-effect coverage. Sure, I was already plenty versatile for a supporter, but I wanted to become truly all-around.
"Here we are," Poly announced.
"Already? We're here?"
"Yes. This is the terminal sector."
The dungeon's terminal sector. In other words, the 'boss room.' It was the mandatory final destination required to clear any dungeon, housing the master of the domain. In trash-mob-only instances like this one, however, people referred to it strictly as the terminal sector rather than a boss chamber.
Awaiting us was the final wave of fodder: five lizardmen. Ugh, lizardmen again. I am so sick and tired of these reptiles. I wish they'd just permanently vanish from my life.
"Butterfly attached," I said.
"Understood. Going in!"
Just because it was the final room didn't make it any harder. Dodging what needed dodging, swinging where needed swinging—snick, snack, slice. Five lizardmen were bifurcated in short order.
"Nice. Very nice!" Poly beamed.
"Good work."
"You worked hard as well, Vid-nim. Are you feeling any signs of mana depletion? I packed a few potions just in case."
"No problems. Not yet."
"That's a relief, then. Please let me know immediately if you ever need one."
I didn't actually know my precise mana pool yet. I really needed to test my limits when I had the chance, just to see how long I could sustain the butterflies before running completely on empty.
"Once we head out, let me buy you a cup of coffee," Poly offered, scratching the back of his neck. "There's something I'd like to discuss at length. Do you have some time?"
"Yes."
"..."
"..."
A heavy silence settled between us as our eyes locked.
"..."
"...Did you have something more to say?" I prompted.
"...Vid-nim. Doesn't something feel strange to you?"
"Like what?" I tilted my head.
"There shouldn't be any monsters left in this dungeon."
"Right."
"Then why hasn't the exit gate appeared?"
"...Huh."
Wait, he was right.
A clear confirmation should have popped up long ago. Yet the dungeon interior remained eerily quiet. In a situation like this, absolute silence was the worst possible omen.
A single terrifying possibility flashed across my mind.
The one phenomenon that superseded a dungeon's clear conditions. The disaster that every hunter dreaded with their entire soul—a catastrophe guaranteed to lead the nine o'clock evening news the second it occurred.
A Dungeon Mutation.
Rumbleeeee...
"Ah."
"Holy shit!"
My gasp and Poly's curse erupted at the exact same moment.
The cavern walls flashed with a sickening crimson-black hue. Accompanied by a deafening roar, the subterranean structure began violently reshaping itself. Every diverging path and fork twisted and fused together, reorganizing into a single, continuous corridor.
The freshly renovated winding cavern bore an uncanny resemblance to the serpentine body of a colossal serpent.
And then—
"Sss... Ssssssssshk..."
From far down the path we had just traversed, a gigantic black serpent was slowly, deliberately slithering toward us.