Party Leader: Baek Jaeseong — 7

We hunted without any real trouble. Our party's level far exceeded what I had expected. Not only was each of them individually solid, they meshed together well. Five people moving as a single body meant there were no blind spots in our field of view, and nothing resembling a dangerous situation ever developed. Dark Goblins were monsters that leaned on sheer numbers, and we formed up and cut their packs down methodically.

"There's another staircase going down. It leads to the third basement floor."

"Devil's Basement has safe zones every five floors, right?"

A safe zone was a space inside a dungeon that monsters would not invade. Long-term dungeon expeditions were almost always planned around them.

Devil's Basement ran twenty floors in total. The fifth, tenth, and fifteenth basement floors were safe zones. The twentieth and final floor was the boss room, where the dungeon's master waited. Taking that boss would require a Dungeon Hunter of at least Rank 6.

With our party, we might even be able to handle the boss.

If I used every last bit of the power I was keeping hidden, we might actually be able to kill it. Getting down to the twentieth basement floor in a single day, though, was out of the question. We would need a schedule of at least two or three days. Ours was a same-day in-and-out run, which made reaching the boss room unrealistic.

"Let's go down."

The moment I said it, Yeonji, who had been taking point, swallowed hard and started toward the stairs. I could see the tension in her muscles. The Demonic hunters targeting us were waiting below. I had told the two of them about that yesterday.

I had not told Lina or Jisu about the Demonic ambush. Their target was me and me alone. The others would not be caught in the crossfire.

I was going to fuck both of them eventually, but for now they were still strangers. Opening my most important information to the two of them was still too much of a risk.

"Ugh. This place feels different from the floors above. Damper… and creepier. Like walking into an abandoned factory."

Lina frowned, glancing left and right. The stale, stuffy smell unique to basements had thickened by another degree, and the darkness hung everywhere as if it meant to close around our throats. We surveyed our surroundings by the light of our headlamps.

"Shelves. So this is B3 — the armory."

The rotting wooden racks were packed with weapons rusted beyond any hope of practical use. You would not even get scrap-metal prices for them. Needless to say, no Dungeon Hunter bothered collecting this junk.

Clank. Clank. Clank. Clank.

Even a crumbling armory like this had its garrison. The monsters that spawned from the third basement floor onward were Armor Knights. The name conjured images of knights in armor, but in truth they were the armor itself.

"Three monsters up front! Armor Knights!"

Yeonji's warning came sharp and loud. In front of her, already settled into a combat stance, stood knights gripping rusty pikes and shields about as tall as a child. Helm, breastplate, gauntlets, greaves — a full suit of plate that would not have looked out of place in a medieval fantasy — blocking our path with thoroughly unthreatening weapons.

The visual suggested a tall man ought to be inside that armor. Astonishingly, the armor itself was the monster. A hollow knight. A shell with nothing inside. That was the essence of an Armor Knight.

"Their attack power is low, but their defense and stamina are high. Melee is inefficient. Yeonji, just keep them occupied. Sujin, Lina, and I will take them down."

"Got it!"

"All right!"

Sujin gathered her mana. Moisture coalesced around her, then a stream of water began to spray forth. She compressed that spray back into a single point. Crushed from every direction by immense pressure, the spherical mass of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠water packed a cannonball's destructive force inside itself.

Sujin launched the water cannonball into the gap between the three Armor Knights.

Then she raised a barrier of water in front of us. Like a fountain installed in an amusement-park plaza, the water sprayed up in a clean, straight line across our path.

FWOOOOSH!

The water cannonball, condensed to its limit, burst apart and scattered a destructive force that made a water balloon look like a joke. The three Armor Knights standing around the blast were hit dead-on, as if a waterfall dropping several ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠meters had struck them square in the chest.

They went bouncing away in every direction. The rusty weapons flew from their hands, and their bodies slammed into the armory's rotting wooden shelves again and again. Armor crumpled and dented in places, as if they had been in a traffic accident.

"Impressive."

"Hehe. Not bad, right? I've been practicing this technique a lot."

It was enormous. That had to be at least Rank 7 destructive power. She had wiped out all three Armor Knights in a single attack — and not a drop of water had splashed on us. Control refined to the absolute limit.

"Let's harvest the materials."

An Armor Knight's material was its core. A nucleus about the size of a small pebble sat inside the armor, and those cores sold for a high price as alchemical ingredients. We collected the byproducts from the monsters we had brought down.

"Stronger than I expected. That output's almost Rank 7. Isn't that woman Rank 10?"

"Let's see. Name's Shin Sujin. Rank 10 Dungeon Hunter. Looks like she's got talent too. A promotion's as good as in the bag."

Jang Jicheol watched Baek Jaeseong's party through his night-vision goggles. The Armor Knight helm he had forced himself into restricted his field of view, but it was not a serious problem.

Fortunately, Baek Jaeseong's party was the only one using the third-basement hunting grounds of Devil's Basement. If another party had been present, the plan had been to split their numbers — one group drawing the other party's eyes, the other hitting Jaeseong's.

Jaeseong's group was unexpectedly strong. Strong enough that Jang was starting to understand why that Baek Jaeseong bastard had been swaggering around with so much reckless confidence. Jo Jinyong, the Ecster Clan scouter who had planned this whole affair, frowned and looked at Jang Jicheol.

"With that kind of firepower, a frontal fight's going to be rough. We wouldn't lose if we took it seriously, but there's no reason to eat losses we don't have to."

"Oho. Look at you using your head. You must really want to fuck those women, huh?"

"Obviously. If you looked at women like that and didn't want to fuck them, you wouldn't be a man. You'd be a goddamn eunuch."

"Heh heh! Fair enough. But don't get too worked up. The only target this operation is that man. Once we recruit the other women into the clan, we can take our time making our moves on them."

"I know. First we need to peel that guy off the group. Who's playing bait?"

"Hold on. That bastard's moving off alone. I'll tail him. Everyone else stay here."

Baek Jaeseong, who had been harvesting Armor Knight materials, said something to his party and then moved deeper in.

Jo Jinyong held his breath and slipped silently in the direction Jaeseong had gone. Darkness had settled over everything, and the armory was crowded with obstacles like the weapon racks; as long as they were careful with the noise, they could move without being detected.

"I'm coming too."

Party leader Jang Jicheol attached himself to Jo Jinyong as well. The rest would keep Baek Jaeseong's other party members occupied.

"Where's this guy going? Need to take a piss or something?"

"Unless he slept through his academy days, he should know that even taking a shit in a dungeon means posting a lookout. What's he thinking?"

Baek Jaeseong's footsteps were unhesitating, as if he already knew the layout of this place. Of course, a map would ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠have given him a rough idea — but even so, moving that naturally through this kind of darkness was no easy thing. In all the time he walked, not a single Armor Knight appeared.

Jang Jicheol and Jo Jinyong felt something off even as they tailed him. Baek Jaeseong's movement was nothing like that of a normal Dungeon Hunter. He was wandering the place as if it were his own house. His footsteps finally stopped only after he had put a long stretch of distance between himself and the rest of his party.

"This should be far enough."

Baek Jaeseong muttered it, then turned around.

"If you're going to tail someone, at least do it right."

He stretched a hand toward Jo Jinyong and Jang Jicheol.

The reason I had not taken Jo Jinyong's little ambush plan seriously was simple: I was confident in my own ability. I had a lot of skills. If I had to worry about other people's eyes, I would have been limited to Light Control and the skills derived from it — but there was no need for that against Demonic hunters. Just as there ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠is no need to keep secrets in front of a corpse.

Darkness Control was one of the skills I possessed. Among Natural-type abilities, it ranked near the top in raw destructive power. And like every other Natural-type ability, Darkness Control changed in potency depending on the environment.

Water Control grew stronger at sea. Fire Control grew stronger in the desert. In the same way, Darkness Control unleashed its true force in thick, smothering dark. The reverse was also true — in daylight, when the dark hid itself in the shade to flee the sun, its power dropped.

In any case, Devil's Basement was the single best environment for pushing Darkness Control to its absolute maximum. Used here, my Darkness Control would be at least on par with a Rank 6 hunter's ability.

Add a mix of other skills on top of that, and punks like these don't stand a chance of beating me.

I had already roughly finished the combat-power calculation. I had lured them on purpose, and I had struck first. Dark crimson blood poured from the abdomens of the two men who had taken the Darkness Arrows dead-on. They had been wearing Armor Knight plate, and my Darkness Arrows had torn through that armor like paper before turning both men's guts into a pulped, concussed mess. If they had not been Dungeon Hunters, they might well have died of shock on the spot.

"Cough!Cough! How…?"

A tangle of emotions crossed Jo Jinyong's face. From where he was standing, it would have felt unfair. The idea that I already knew his plan at this stage would have been absurd to him.

I shone my headlamp straight into his pupils. He poured blood from his mouth, twisting his head away, writhing.

"How? How what? Your little scheme was already blown a long time ago."

"What!? You son of a bitch…. What the hell are you!?"

"Beats me. What am I? Heh! I've actually got one hell of a secret — but I'm never telling you. You just suffer and die."

I laughed in Jo Jinyong's face. I hawked a glob of spit onto him and ground my heel in, over and over. Dry coughs burst out of him along with a spray of vomited blood.

"Don't get your filthy blood on me."

I kicked his head like a soccer ball. I kicked too hard. His neck snapped in an instant and his body went limp. In the space of a heartbeat he was a cold corpse. A fitting end for a Demonic.

"Oops. My mistake. I was planning to mock him a little longer."

But it was fine. I still had one more prisoner. I turned my gaze toward Jang Jicheol. The pupils of the man who met my eyes shook violently.