Chapter 177: The Seeker Who Heralds Ruin (5)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 177: The Seeker Who Heralds Ruin (5)
For a moment, I doubted my own eyes.
I wondered if my optic nerves had finally given out, pickled by too much pleasure.
I rubbed my eyes and even slapped my head a few times, but the scene before me remained unchanged.
The party emerging from the ‘Coral Reef Cave,’ where the Seeker had been hiding, was indeed Elena and Seo-yeon.
“…Does that mean?”
Once I finally accepted that fact, a dizzying thought flashed through my mind.
Perhaps one of them, or even both, was ‘One with Aptitude.’
“The two of them started hanging out together a lot after the break….”
Starting from the vacation, photos of the two of them together began appearing frequently in our team’s group chat.
They’d said they met by chance, got along well, and started clearing dungeons together to earn money, all while having fun and learning new things.
At the time, I’d just brushed it off, thinking that sometimes people you’d least expect just click. But… what if that wasn’t the case?
“They might have discovered each other’s identities by chance and decided to team up….”
I couldn’t rule out that possibility.
Of course, there were far too many other possibilities as well.
It wasn’t entirely impossible that they had come to this dungeon by pure coincidence, or that only one of them was ‘One with Aptitude.’
To be certain, I had to eliminate some of the branching possibilities.
And the best way to do that was to tail them.
“Ji-an.”
“Yes.”
“Can you check other people’s dungeon entry records?”
“Um… unauthorized viewing of someone’s dungeon entry records is illegal unless there’s a special reason….”
Ah, right.
It was technically illegal.
It was just that the high-ranking officials at the Association completely ignored that rule.
“Hmm… then it’ll be difficult.”
What should I do?
If one of them was ‘One with Aptitude,’ I absolutely had to know their route.
That was the only way I could avoid them and focus on eliminating the Seekers.
The moment our paths crossed, one side’s efforts would be wasted, and it would raise suspicions about each other’s identities.
And it would be better if I were the only one harboring those suspicions.
“Umm… sir.”
While I was lost in thought, Yoon Ji-an asked me in a worried tone.
“Is this something you absolutely need right now, Do-jin?”
“Well… let’s just say it would put me at a great advantage if possible.”
If she was asking if it was something I needed to accomplish even at a loss, then no, it wasn’t.
However, it was also true that being able to track their route in real-time by viewing their records would be incredibly beneficial for me.
Hearing my answer, she nodded with a determined expression.
“I understand. In that case… I’ll look into it.”
“…You said it was illegal. I don’t want to burden you with something that could get you in trouble.”
That was the honest truth, without a shred of falsehood.
I couldn’t throw the woman who was going to be my office wife to the wolves over something I could handle myself.
“Do-jin….”
My words seemed to have moved her deeply.
Heh, I wasn’t aiming for that, but it looks like I landed a lucky punch.
A faint smile appeared on her blushing face.
“You don’t have to worry too much. I have a close friend in the Entry/Exit Management Department. If I ask her, I should be able to find out without any risk of getting caught.”
She quickly added.
“Of course, if my friend refuses, then I’m out of options.”
“…Is it okay to ask your friend to do something illegal?”
“Yes, it should be fine. I helped her out once before, too.”
It was an incredibly tempting offer.
“Then… shall we just ask her lightly?”
I asked in a slightly sheepish tone, and she smiled.
“I’ll be right back after a quick call.”
She got out of the car and made a call to someone.
I really hoped it would work out.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
After eliminating another Seeker at the C+-rank dungeon ‘Small Ruins’ on the outskirts of Busan, Yoon Ji-an, who had been waiting, approached me.
“Son Seo-yeon and Elena’s dungeon entry records have been updated.”
“Where are they?”
“It’s ‘The Stench-Soaked Sewer,’ located 12km from here.”
“The Stench-Soaked Sewer….”
Just hearing the name made it seem like the stench was already stinging my nose.
I zoomed in on the minimap, comparing the dungeon marked with the Seeker’s location to the one she mentioned.
The moment I confirmed the locations matched perfectly, the marker vanished from the minimap.
In other words, the Seeker hiding in that smelly sewer had been eliminated.
“Ah, it’s been updated again. They just finished the clear and came out.”
“As I thought….”
With this, one thing seemed certain.
It was definitely not a coincidence that the two of them were clearing dungeons in Busan, far from Seoul.
And it was also certain that one or both of them was ‘One with Aptitude.’
“This is really tricky….”
There were a total of 504 humans with the ‘One with Aptitude’ trait.
It might seem like a large number at first glance, but it was an extremely small minority.
Because those 504 people weren’t just in Korea; that was the worldwide total.
The current world population was 5.5 billion.
So, we were talking about two or three people from that tiny group of 504 out of 5.5 billion belonging to the same university and the same team.
And that wasn’t all.
“…If things go wrong, we could be linked as father and daughter.”
If Seo-yeon was ‘One with Aptitude,’ the odds became even more twisted.
A father and daughter who had their bodies swapped meet at the same university and form a team, and on top of that, both of them are two of the 504 people with the ‘One with Aptitude’ trait?
“What is this, some third-rate fantasy novel…?”
Even in a third-rate novel, that many coincidences piled up wouldn’t just be a novel, it’d be kindling. Pure kindling.
You could just nudge it into a fire and it would go up in flames. Yep.
But there’s a saying.
Sometimes, reality surpasses fiction.
…And for some reason, I had a nagging feeling that was exactly what was happening, which left a bad taste in my mouth.
“If Seo-yeon really is ‘One with Aptitude’….”
Since I was definitely the 504th ‘One with Aptitude,’ that meant Seo-yeon must have obtained the trait before me….
All sorts of thoughts hammered at my mind.
When on earth did she get this trait, and why didn’t she say anything to her parents, me or Ju-hee?
Was it because she didn’t trust us, or was there another reason?
These meaningless, fleeting thoughts kept clouding my mind.
“Hoo!”
I knew.
In this body, I was not her father or anything else.
But I couldn’t help it, could I?
I had lived as her father for 20 years. How could I cut all those ties at once?
“Do-jin, where should we go next?”
“Ah.”
Yoon Ji-an’s question snapped me back to reality.
Right.
This wasn’t the time for this.
To get an edge in this damn competition, it was time for action, not thought.
I could sort out my thoughts after all this was over.
“Just a moment.”
I immediately entered a new destination into the navigation system.
All the Seekers in Busan had been eliminated.
Out of a total of 20, I had taken care of half, and Seo-yeon and Elena had taken care of six.
So what happened to the other four?
They were eliminated by parties that happened to enter those dungeons.
That made me realize another variable.
Seekers could be eliminated by people who were just there for a normal dungeon clear.
So I had to move even more diligently.
Especially late at night or in the early morning, when dungeons were rarely challenged.
“Ji-an.”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry, but for the next three days, let’s take turns sleeping in shifts.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t die from not sleeping for three days.”
Yoon Ji-an replied confidently, flexing a toned arm.
I lightly squeezed her firm arm and said.
“When this is over, let’s go finish what we were doing in the car earlier.”
“Hah…!”
Her nostrils flared slightly as she let out a hot breath.
Then she gripped the steering wheel tightly.
“Th-Then let’s go right now!”
She started to floor the accelerator.
…Save me.
* * *
“Kuaaaah!”
“Kyaaaak!”
Two gray-skinned Seekers launched a joint attack on Kim Do-jin.
One with a sword, the other with a bow.
The fantastic combination of close-range and long-range attacks, coupled with the B-rank difficulty of the dungeon, gave him a tough time for a moment, but…
「Aegis.」
The tide turned when a wave of cold air poured from the shield manifested by his signature magic.
Crack!
While the Seeker who had swung its sword at the shield was frozen solid, unable to move, he plunged a sword into the heart of the other Seeker, which was firing arrows from a distance.
Stab!
It was the sword the other Seeker had dropped when it froze.
One Seeker collapsed with its heart pierced. Just then, the other Seeker broke free from the ice and charged with a monstrous roar.
“Kuwaaaaaak!”
An opponent without its sword was hopelessly weakened.
The distinct form of its techniques from moments ago vanished, replaced by nothing but reckless punches.
“No matter how good you are with a sword, you should have learned some other martial arts.”
Even if one primarily used swordsmanship, one had to prepare for situations where the sword was lost or unusable.
But this Seeker had not.
That became the greatest cause of its defeat.
Thwack!
After killing one Seeker, he picked up the sword that had fallen to the ground and returned it to its original owner.
Not to its hand, but to its heart.
“Krrk…!”
With a gurgling sound, the Seeker collapsed on top of its fallen comrade.
Kim Do-jin picked up the two mana stones from the ground and left the dungeon.
“Ugh, it’s cold.”
The cold wind hit his sweat-drenched body, and a chill began to set in.
As he was changing into a spare set of clothes from the bag in the back seat, Yoon Ji-an approached with a slightly worried expression.
It seemed something had happened.
“Do-jin.”
“Yes?”
“It seems there’s a problem with Son Seo-yeon and Elena’s party.”
“…A problem?”
“It’s been five hours since they entered the dungeon, and they still haven’t come out….”
Kim Do-jin’s face hardened.
“…Which dungeon did you say they entered?”
“The B-rank dungeon, ‘Frigid Forest.’ The monsters that appear are Ice Trolls.”
Ice Trolls.
Trolls whose bodies were covered in pure white snow.
Perhaps because their bodies were frozen, their unique regenerative ability was weaker than that of a standard A-rank troll, ranking them as B-rank monsters.
Their strength and agility were nothing special, but their skin color acted as camouflage in snowy weather, making them manageable as long as one was wary of ambushes.
‘I have a really bad feeling about this….’
A grim picture formed in his mind.
If they were ambushed by Ice Trolls while dealing with the Seeker, even two people as capable as them wouldn’t escape unscathed.
“How long will it take to get there?”
“If we use the express lane, we can get there in about 30 minutes.”
It could just be a groundless fear.
They might just be taking their time to be thorough, slaughtering all the Ice Trolls without any trouble.
But the opposite could also be true.
“…Let’s go now.”
In the end, he decided to check on their condition himself.
Otherwise, it felt like he’d never be able to calm the frantic pounding of his anxious heart.