The Weight of Absence
When their skeleton companion was gone, they turned to the item Baek A-rin had handed out at the entrance: Small Holy Water. It was called holy water, but in truth it was ordinary liquid imbued with the light attribute by priests or paladins who drew power from light-aligned gods. Only the light attribute, with its superior compatibility compared to other elements, could achieve such an effect. Because it carried even a faint trace of that holy energy, even a purely physical fighter like A-rin could briefly strike incorporeal monsters such as ghosts.
It was actually a difficult item to obtain, but A-rin and Jua had connections from their academy days that made it somewhat easier for them. Yeonhee had received the holy water as soon as they arrived at the dungeon that morning and had already tested it on her summons. The results were clear. The spirit Ran, the lizardmen, and the kobolds could use it without issue, but the rest of the monsters recoiled in horror at even the slightest contact. Of course, the lizardmen and kobolds had looked extremely displeased when the holy water was applied to their weapons, but compared to the other summons, their reaction was relatively mild.
The lizardmen could be explained by Irmana's Blessing, but why didn’t the kobolds show any aversion to holy water? Judging by their appearance, they should have been dark-attribute creatures. It was truly puzzling.
The holy water they currently possessed amounted to exactly two bottles per person. Since they couldn’t supply every summon with the limited resource, they planned to apply it only to Lizard No. 3’s weapon. Considering the number of summons, they would have needed far more, but two bottles had seemed more than enough when the party discussed quantities yesterday. No matter how unpredictable a dungeon could be, who could have imagined losing Ilwol to a mimic?
Of course, there was another reason they hadn’t purchased extra holy water.
A palm-sized bottle half-filled with water costs a whopping 1.5 million won.
That was already the discounted event price from the original two million won. For D-rank hunters, it was an unbearably heavy expense. With just one bottle, they could barely last half a day in this place. In that sense, it was only natural that hunters avoided this dungeon.
Yeonhee and her party would soon begin earning steady income from the mine in a few months, but they had no desire to waste money on a dungeon they would only run once.
“Ugh… If only I’d awakened as a monk instead. I could just make holy water and live comfortably.”
“Right…?”
Grass always looked greener on the other side. Jua and A-rin weren’t completely satisfied with their own classes. They sometimes dreamed of something miraculous like a second awakening, but since that was completely beyond their control, they could only grumble like this from time to time.
At least this dungeon wasn’t unnecessarily large and had a high monster density. If they could handle it with their own abilities, the profit was comparable to other dungeons. Ghost-type monsters didn’t drop byproducts, but their rune drop rate and the quality of magic stones were better than average.
“Just give it a shot~! Let’s fight our way through and even clear the boss if we have to~!”
“Yeah, yeah!!”
“We can do this even without Ilwol! Let’s gooo!!”
“Uwaaa…!!”
Four hours later.
“Haa… haa… Fuck. I swear I’m never coming back here again.”
About two hundred meters away from the ‘abandoned school’ where the boss battle took place, four party members were gasping for breath, trying to steady their breathing. A-rin, who had been cursing nonstop, spoke in a slightly calmer voice.
“…I think we’re in serious trouble. Should we turn back now? It might be the smart thing to do. The further we go toward the school, the more ghosts there are.”
Bae Jua shook her head at A-rin’s suggestion. She clutched her head as if she couldn’t pinpoint exactly when things had gone wrong.
“We can’t… My mana is completely drained. I’ve hit rock bottom so many times that even my recovery rate has slowed. We should have turned back an hour ago…”
They were currently facing two major problems.
The first was with Bae Jua, the party’s undeniable core in this dungeon. Her mana supply had completely collapsed. Manifesting massive boulders consumed far more mana than expected. Yeonhee deeply regretted not having Ilwol collect water from Irmana’s Lake. Why had she neglected such a simple preparation?
It’s my fault… I should have taken care of it.
That wasn’t the root cause, but she still blamed herself.
The second problem was the truly fatal variable.
“Why, why are there so many ghosts?! Hey, didn’t you come here a month ago? Was it like this then?”
“No way! There are at least twice as many as last time! Seriously, what’s going on today…?”
“Maybe… the appearance of that mimic affected the spawn rate?”
“Ah, that could be it… Just like how fewer monsters increase the chance of variants appearing…”
“Damn it… Is that really what’s happening…?”
Jua felt terrible that her party members were suffering because of her. She had pushed herself harder than usual during the battles on the way here, and the result was mana exhaustion.
“If we can just reach the abandoned school, there’ll be an administrator there. We can catch our breath. We just need to make it that far.”
“We’re surrounded… completely surrounded…”
“…About two hundred meters left?”
“Yeah, roughly that.”
It was close, yet considering the remaining mana of both Jua and Yeonhee, it didn’t seem likely they could return safely.
I failed to manage my mana properly…
Yeonhee wasn’t in as dire a state as Jua, but her mana was also nearing empty. Thanks to the artifact Ilwol had given her, she hadn’t fallen into full mana exhaustion, but her recovery speed had slowed noticeably.
When Ilwol isn’t here, we need summons that can use magic attacks… I leaned too heavily on one side.
Her summons weren’t very helpful in dealing damage to enemies, but she had judged them sufficient as meat shields. Every time they were surrounded by ghosts, she kept summoning and resummoning them, which rapidly drained her mana.
In the end, the best defense was offense. Simply blocking had no answer.
The one silver lining was that Ham Eun-young’s dispel ability was working steadily. Her singing applied to monsters without resistance, allowing the tanking summons to hold out longer.
“Are you okay, Eun-young unnie?”
“…I-I’m fine.”
Maybe because she liked this dungeon, it seemed to help her perform better. Ham Eun-young showed no visible signs of exhaustion.
- Kiiiyaaaaaaaak!! -
“It’s starting again. Now it sounds like they’re right next to us…”
It wasn’t an illusion. The screams of a ghost horde echoed repeatedly from extremely close range, grating on their nerves.
“This is fucked… We’re really screwed. At this rate I might become a virgin ghost myself.”
“Tsk… Yeonhee, how much time left on Ilwol?”
“About eighty-four minutes.”
“Haa…”
“I miss Ilwol…”
“……”
They say you don’t know what you have until it’s gone. A summon that could use magic and attribute attacks. Ilwol’s presence was desperately needed.
They had thought their current forces would be enough even without him, but once thrown into real combat, the party’s balance was collapsing at an alarming rate. Getting lost and stumbling into areas where monsters were unusually clustered was something that never happened when Ilwol was present.
Especially problematic was how often the summons and party members got tangled together during battle, causing confusion. That too had never occurred while Ilwol was around.
If Yeonhee was the platoon leader controlling the small-squad-sized group of summons, then Ilwol had been her executive officer. He opened paths when summons needed to be deployed at the right moment, assisted summons that were being swarmed or facing unbalanced matchups, and gave orders to those moving inefficiently.
He also coordinated movement lines so that the party members and summons could work together organically. That lubricant-like role had been overshadowed by his flashy skills like Skeleton Bomb, but only now that he was gone did they truly realize how much he had been doing.
Ilwol was handling so many things…
Even as her body swayed from mana exhaustion, Jua’s mind was filled with that realization. She had thought of him as simply a uniquely powerful individual summon, but he had actually been the core of this party.
The ghosts gave them no breathing room. These incorporeal monsters still retained faint traces of human shape. They had now completely surrounded the party and were tightening the noose.
“We have to decide… Should we just sprint straight to the abandoned school~?”
“Mm… That seems best. Can you resummon the summons?”
“Yes. I don’t know how long I can maintain them, so get on right away.”
“Got it!”
As soon as Yeonhee called out Lizardmen No. 2, 3, and 4, the hunters familiarly climbed onto their shoulders.
“Let’s go!”
The moment the summoner gave the order, the four lizardmen charged toward their destination at full speed.
Thud thud thud thud!
The massive lizards barreled through the withered forest. The ghosts drawn by the aggro and other monsters trapped in Lethargy all chased after them at once. And the horde wasn’t only coming from behind. They poured in from the sides and front as well, from every direction.
Yeonhee eventually had to summon additional creatures to form a wall around the party members. Even so, they couldn’t completely avoid the ghosts’ attacks.
You have fallen into the status ailment Lethargy!
Peace of Mind has activated!
The status ailment Lethargy has been removed!
You have fallen into the status ailment Lethargy!
Peace of Mind is ······
After being continuously exposed to the ghosts’ attacks, they repeatedly fell into and escaped from endless lethargy and terror. Their mental strength was hitting rock bottom.
“Rock Wall… Rock Wall! Damn it!”
Jua had reached the point where she couldn’t even manifest her magic anymore. Using her provocation skill to shake off pursuit, they were now only about fifty meters from the abandoned school.
“Fuck, why isn’t there a single hunter passing by?!”
Normally, near the boss area, other hunters would gather and they could catch a breather, but this cursed dungeon didn’t even offer that small mercy.
Still, as the ominous medieval-style castle grew larger in their sight and a tiny spark of hope flickered, they encountered the very monster they had feared most in this dungeon.
“Why! Why now of all times after not appearing until now!”
“This is the absolute worst… Please, lizards, save us! Run!”
“Huuuugh…!”
In the dungeon named Abandoned School No. 1, there was one monster that hunters feared even more than the boss, Dread Ghost.
“Kekekekeke—”
It was a wraith. At first glance it looked similar to a spectre, but like ghosts, it still retained some human shape. Being incorporeal, physical attacks were impossible. What made wraiths so difficult to deal with was their skill.