A Dog's Choice
As I glanced back at the ruined stretch of road, sure enough, Seok-jun stood atop the embankment, looking down at us.
“Groooar!!”
“Grrrrrr.”
Even now, Lee Jun was being whipped back and forth in the monster’s jaws like a dog chew toy. Mina couldn’t help asking, “Is he really not going to get himself killed doing that?”
“If anyone’s built like a tank, it’s that guy,” Min-jeong muttered. She and Cheok-jeong stayed back as well, watching helplessly while Jun flopped and flailed with every violent shake of the monster’s head.
“I told you to keep an eye on Yeeun.”
“Ah, Grizzly!”
When Seok-jun came down the walkway with a baffled expression, Yeeun—who had been sticking close to Mina—scurried over and grabbed the hem of his coat.
“Did you look after her for me, Miss Mina?”
“Look after… I suppose that’s one way to put it.” It had felt far more like the child was the one swinging her around, given how monstrously strong she was.
“Thank you for your trouble.”
Apparently already aware that she was an awakened, he gave a small nod, stroked Yeeun’s hair as she clung to his side, then turned his gaze back to the monster. “Still, how did something like that end up rampaging in a place like this?”
“Well, it’s like this…”
Mina wondered if they shouldn’t rescue Jun first, but his armor showed no punctures or dents despite those razor-sharp teeth. Whether it was thanks to his own mana or the material itself, she couldn’t tell. So she recounted everything that had happened up to now.
“You’re saying the dog suddenly transformed into a monster?”
“Yes.”
She worried he might not believe her even as she explained it, but Seok-jun listened with complete seriousness.
“Strange for a mimic-type. They’re usually not this strong.”
“I thought the same.” Mimic monsters were known for being relatively weak. Doppelgangers that often took human form were classified as C-grade, yet their actual combat ability was closer to E-grade.
“What rank would you say it was, Miss Mina?”
“At the very least, A-grade. That destroyed walkway is from its breath attack.” To Mina, it looked even stronger than the Cursed Hornet her guild had subjugated before. The Hornet might have relied on sheer numbers, but it had still been a solid A-grade monster.
“There hasn’t been a dungeon break—or even a mid-grade gate or higher—in this area or anywhere nearby within the last month.” Seok-jun lifted his smartphone, apparently checking for any break reports. “The only possible connection would be the gate your guild cleared previously.”
“That was a Cursed Hornet nest. Completely different type, so it doesn’t fit.”
It wasn’t listed in the monster wiki, so a new species couldn’t be entirely ruled out, but the odds were still low. She had been turning over how to handle it when—
“We should just subjugate it now and sort out the details later.”
Since it was clearly a monster, Mina believed hunting it came before identifying it. Charging in without knowing its weaknesses was risky, but leaving a creature like this alone would only lead to uncontrollable damage. She regretted not acting from the beginning; that lingering sense of wrongness—different from any other monster—had kept her from swinging her sword with conviction.
The moment she finally resolved to kill it—
“Play with me too!”
“Grr?!”
“Since when—?!”
Mina’s eyes widened in horror as Yeeun, apparently bored with their conversation, suddenly darted toward the monster.
“Grrk! Ptoo!”
“Ugh!”
Startled, the beast spat out the limp Jun it had been thrashing around and drew in a massive breath. It was clearly preparing a breath attack. Before she could think, Mina hurled a mana-forged blade straight at its maw. No matter how strong Yeeun was, there was no guarantee she could survive a direct hit.
“Snort!”
Though it had no visible eyes, the creature snorted in clear mockery and simply sidestepped. Because Yeeun stood between them, Mina hadn’t been able to throw with full strength; the sword followed a slow arc.
“Damn it…!”
Just as she formed another sword and prepared to charge—
“There’s no need to worry.”
Seok-jun caught her shoulder, stepping forward first. The sword she had created vanished. All her strength suddenly drained away and she crumpled to the ground.
“No need to worry? She’s still a child, no matter how strong she is!”
She tried to protest his calm tone, but the monster had already gathered its breath. Its jaws opened, glowing with swirling particles of light.
“I agree with you, Miss Mina. But then why do you think that thing was protecting Yeeun?”
At that exact moment, Lee Jun—who had been spat out and left lying limp on the ground—suddenly sprang to his feet and planted himself in front of the little girl.
Mina stared in shock, but the breath attack was already firing.
—KWAAAAAAAH!
“…He blocked it?”
Jun was taking the full force of the blast head-on. It wasn’t complete nullification like Seok-jun’s ability; stray beams of light shot out to the sides, but Seok-jun had already moved behind him and erased them. Then, when the attack reached a certain range—
“Kyaaing?!”
Seok-jun hurled a rope of mana that wrapped around the monster’s neck. The colossal form vanished. The creature was hurled into the air and slammed back down as a tiny dog.
“Cha Seok-jun? When did you—?”
“It turned back into a dog?”
Min-jeong and Cheok-jeong, who had been forced to watch helplessly, exclaimed in astonishment. Mina pushed herself up from the ground and walked over to Seok-jun.
“What exactly is going on?”
“Grrrr, bark! Woof!”
Now back in the form of a small dachshund, the creature growled and twisted its long body inside Seok-jun’s arms, kicking its short legs wildly in an attempt to break free. But it was nothing more than an adorable puppy now.
“The more I listen to your story, Miss Mina, the more differences I see from a typical monster.”
“That may be true, but new species can rewrite the rules, can’t they?”
Monsters shared certain traits, yet they varied wildly according to their forms. If this was a new species, they would need to study and analyze its characteristics before forming a strategy. Besides, by all appearances the dog had transformed into a monster.
She had felt that same sense of incongruity and hesitated, but she couldn’t be certain it wasn’t a monster. A new species would be even more dangerous.
“Moreover, this fellow became frightened the moment he saw Yeeun.”
Indeed, even while transformed, the dachshund had never acted its massive size. It had desperately tried to shake Yeeun off whenever she clung to or approached it.
“Have you ever seen a monster show fear, Miss Mina?”
“Ah!”
Mina recalled one of the fundamental rules of monsters. No matter how small or weak, while they might fear other monsters, they never feared humans—no matter how strong the opponent—nor did they ever stop attacking.
“I cannot say whether a new species might change that trait, but the decisive factor was the mana wavelength. It matched an awakened’s, not a monster’s.”
“Mana wavelength…”
She had heard the term before. She didn’t need to look far—Mina herself could sense others’ mana to a degree. With something as overwhelmingly powerful as Yeeun or this dachshund, it was impossible not to notice.
It made sense, given that Seok-jun possessed nullification-type mana. She had heard that nullifiers were unusually sensitive to the mana of both people and gates.
Then the realization hit her.
“Wait—then that would mean…?”
“Exactly. It wasn’t a monster mimicking a dog. The dog itself awakened mutation-type mana.”
Seok-jun spoke as though it were the most ordinary thing in the world, but Mina could only stare at him, mouth agape.
“That dog was at least A-grade when it transformed.”
No matter how she looked at it, the creature had been far beyond what B-grade hunters could handle. That was why Min-jeong and Cheok-jeong hadn’t dared touch it, and even Mina had wondered if she might lose.
“Looks like this dog outranks all of us.”
“That’s not the point!”
Mina had no idea how to process the situation. She had bled and struggled to reach A-grade, yet here was a dog sitting at the same rank.
“Ice Bear. You okay?”
“Mm.”
At Yeeun’s voice, Mina turned to see Lee Jun—still perfectly fine after taking a direct breath attack—giving a cheerful thumbs-up. As expected, his mana seemed specialized for defense.
Just as I suspected. These people are anything but ordinary.
She had only heard rumors about Seok-jun’s office, but the more she learned, the more her curiosity grew.
“Grrrrr!”
“Mr. Seok-jun?!”
When the dachshund realized it couldn’t escape no matter how hard it struggled, it grew furious and sank its teeth into Seok-jun’s hand. Even in puppy form its bite was no joke. As Mina moved to pull it off, he spoke first.
“If it can manifest mana, it should possess enough intelligence to understand us, yes?”
“What are you talking about?”
She looked at him strangely, unsure whether he was even speaking to her.
“Choi Yeeun. You said you wanted to raise a dog, didn’t you?”
“Wow! Can I really keep him?”
The girl instantly darted to Seok-jun’s side, eyes sparkling. The dachshund that received that gaze flinched violently.
Seok-jun grabbed it by the scruff and held it at just the right height—close enough for Yeeun to almost hug, but not quite.
“Now choose. Will you be hugged tightly like this and die an honorable death? Or will you wear a collar, eat three square meals a day, and live comfortably?”
“That’s clearly a threat!”
She doubted a dog could even understand human speech, but—
“Whiiine.”
It actually worked?!
Amazingly, the dachshund tucked its tail between its legs in clear submission.