Vanguard Tension
Jua's acting was impressive. "Shall we take the very front?" Bae Jua forced a smile as she glanced back at us, but her forehead was already damp with sweat. Even someone as bold as her found it nerve-wracking to stand at the vanguard during a boss fight—especially against an army of a thousand orcs.
"Heh! Perfect day to level up that new skill I manifested!"
"Is your mana holding up? You were spamming it pretty hard earlier, weren't you?"
"I-I'm fine! This is nothing... not with Ilwol here. Right, Ilwol?"
"Clack—"
"Huh? Why only one clack? No, don't go anywhere else. Stay right beside us. Please—"
I nodded.
As I thought, that Rock Spear or whatever it was felt way too satisfying... If nothing special came up, I'd have to stay mindful of keeping Jua inside the range of my mana circuit.
"Um... Eun-yeong, how about riding on top of a monster instead?"
"W-would that be alright...?"
Ham Eun-yeong's physical abilities were barely better than an E-rank's, and she was relatively slow. If she stood at the front, she'd risk getting shoved by the hunters charging from behind and trampled underfoot.
"Lizard No. 4. Carry Eun-yeong on your shoulder."
"Chyaaak!"
"Th-thank you..."
"Don't mention it. I'll be riding too, so let's go together."
"Uh... then, me too..."
"Ah, yes!"
In the end, everyone except Arin ended up fighting from atop the lizardmen's shoulders. They'd been reluctant at first, but it seemed they'd grown to enjoy the comfort. The elevated field of view was another clear advantage. All in all, it was a solid arrangement.
Eun-yeong's abilities shone brightest in large-scale battles like this, and we needed her to deploy them continuously without interruption. That meant keeping her mentally stable was crucial. So I stationed Ttungi and several more lizardmen around Ham Eun-yeong as well. With this much consideration, she ought to feel at least a little grateful toward us. Maybe she'd even open up about that hand mirror of hers.
The gazes of the Apex party members, who had been openly harassing the female hunters, briefly met mine. What are you staring at? I received their looks with calm indifference, but they responded by spinning fingers at their temples and bursting into roaring laughter. What was so funny...? For a second I considered ripping their mouths open so they'd smile for the rest of their lives—
But it remained just a passing thought. There was no reason to fall for such cheap provocation. Instead, I stepped forward to block their line of sight, making sure their eyes wouldn't wander toward Yeonhee or the rest of our party.
Hmm... I let out a sigh that never actually left my mouth and simply waited for the boss battle to begin. If they made any suspicious moves, I could always throw a few bombs to shut them up quietly. For now, I had to endure.
Soon after, the hunters who had challenged the boss began emerging all at once from the circular translucent barrier. Their condition was so wretched that a single glance revealed how brutal the fight had been. Most carried injuries that would require several days of recovery at minimum, and they tossed a few words our way as we waited.
"The orcs are using coordinated formations. Be careful."
"What the hell are we supposed to do against that many spearmen? Fuck..."
"You should form a detached squad to circle around the rear. That's how we barely managed to clear it."
"The boss isn't a mid-tier orc. It's safer to assume it's mid-to-high tier."
"It's gonna be a grind. Good luck suffering, kek."
It was an unspoken rule for hunters finishing the boss battle to offer advice to the next group. Some sneered as if to say you should suffer too, but others provided genuinely useful information.
Spearmen here as well... A detached force, huh. Guess we should do it like before.
Still, the thought of leaving our party members behind to circle around didn't sit well with me. Of course, that very worry existed because of those damn Apex bastards. If not for them, I would have flown ahead alone and torn their formation to shreds.
"Let's just stick together. Splitting in half seems too dangerous-yong," Arin suggested. It looked like that was the right call this time.
"Kuuuugh... Hansu..."
Some hunters emerged carrying comrades whose breathing had already ceased. It seemed the overall increase in monster strength applied to boss battles as well. After a quick count, I noted five deaths. A boss battle mortality rate above five percent classified the dungeon as high-risk, yet the orc dungeon—known as the staple for D-rank hunters—had already reached that point. It had far exceeded normal parameters.
Every time I entered this dungeon, the growing gap from my past-life memories left me disoriented.
"Next group, please proceed~"
Despite five deaths, the staff member's entry signal remained breezily light. Hunters signed liability waivers regarding death before entering dungeons anyway, so no one cared about our potential demise. The attitude was simple: you're taking the risk to earn big money—what do you expect?
Only after the mortality rate skyrocketed and hunter public opinion neared explosion would they finally scramble to raise the dungeon grade. Of course, it was rare for an established dungeon's rank to increase. And not everyone wanted that outcome. Higher grades meant fewer hunters available, and more dungeons to manage would create problems.
The guilds had already sorted profitable dungeons from the rest and fought factional battles internally to claim the good ones. But because the orc dungeon made use of magic stone mines, it wasn't particularly lucrative and was therefore easily neglected.
The interesting part was that when the government, Hunter Association, and Guild Council agreed to raise a dungeon's grade, the System would reflect that change. Truly a mystery in itself.
"Whoa~ Isn't this the famous summoner Lee Yeonhee? What an absolute honor?"
Having ended up at the vanguard alongside the Apex party, we were met with provocations right from the start. Their lines were so clichéd they were almost comical. They clearly had some kind of manual for picking fights back at their guild office.
But I now understood they weren't that simple. Behind the few men who stepped forward to harass us stood a woman calmly observing our group by herself.
The mana subtly leaking from her body was incredibly delicate and stealthy. Anyone without sensory abilities on my level would never have noticed it. They were the type to act like crude, violent thugs in front while concealing other schemes behind the scenes.
This ability... It feels like Stealth is applied directly to her mana. Definitely unusual.
Based on my past-life memories and intuition, this was a skill line that analyzed an opponent's capabilities. Since mana structures differed wildly from person to person, I couldn't pinpoint the exact skill, but several possibilities came to mind. I was still pondering how to handle her ability when—
"Hey, you deaf or something?"
"If you've got any nice artifacts, how about sharing with the class?"
"Magic stones would be fine too. Hehehe—"
The designated provokers were wrinkling their faces to the limit while carrying out their roles. In short, they were saying hand over your stuff before you regret it. In a world where "sharing" was all the rage, it seemed this was how they packaged extortion these days. How original.
"Should we even bother responding?"
"Starting things off with such awful luck, seriously."
Bae Jua and Arin, suddenly targeted, refused to stay quiet and responded confidently. The Apex hunters cracked their necks side to side and fired back.
"Heh heh, fuck. Look at these little bitches and their manners."
"Ladies, don't regret it later. Just crawl on your own. I've lost count of how many times I've disciplined girls who reacted like you today. Do you only learn after getting hit?"
"Yeah. Stop the bullshit-yong."
"If you old men say one more word, I'll rip your mouths apart."
"Puhahaha—! Junho, looks like you finally met your match!"
"These fucking bitches—"
The man named Junho, who even had a snake tattoo crawling across his face, strode aggressively toward us. At the same time, the skill cast by the Apex woman began slithering up my leg like a serpent.
The woman from Apex who served as the source of this ability sat with her eyes closed, cold sweat pouring down her face. Since Composure wasn't activating, it definitely wasn't a mental debuff. There was no sensation of mana depletion or any other discomfort, so it truly seemed to be a skill that analyzed an opponent's capabilities. It couldn't inflict direct damage or effects, but it would feed them my information.
Normally I wouldn't allow myself to be hit so easily, but I left it alone. I figured I might gain something from observing their reactions after they received my data.
It's probably something like Voyeurism or Espionage.
Both skills were useful for determining a target's combat strength and position, and it was known that those hit by them wouldn't even realize they'd been targeted. While both were considered rare, they were still a tier below Jo Giman's Search—which could even read potential—and encountering users wasn't extremely difficult.
I recall it can only target one person at a time. The cooldown is long too. The fact they used it on me means... they considered me the biggest obstacle from the very beginning.
Earlier when they'd been giggling while looking at me, the atmosphere had been one of clear underestimation. Whether that too had been an act or the information had been shared afterward, I couldn't yet tell.
These are dangerous people. Plenty must have underestimated them and paid the price.
In truth, hunters who initiated fights first fell into one of two categories: those whose skill far exceeded mine and who fully understood my capabilities before attacking, or those who couldn't read me but charged in recklessly anyway. The latter were usually the idiots. Unless they were psychopaths, few would torment someone clearly far weaker after perfectly assessing their strength.
People like that were called villains. But when the power gap was that wide, they usually couldn't even enter the same dungeon. Therefore, those who behaved this way were typically underestimated, which explained why Jua and Arin responded without much visible tension—it was simply confidence born from experience.
I stepped in front of my party members and pulled out five bombs.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa—what the hell is that?"
"That's the one. The skeleton soldier that uses bombs and fireballs."
"What? It's still just a skeleton soldier!"
His acting is solid. This old man is wearing gear with every other option stripped out, focused purely on high defense.
It was an equipment set dedicated entirely to the tank role. The runes were probably all Spiky for reflected damage or Vitality runes stacked to the limit.