Chapter 13
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 13
Chapter Title: Into the Darkness
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“…You were listening to my explanation just fine a minute ago, so why now…?”
Whether I killed it quickly or slowly, it was still killing, and I didn’t want to waste time on something pointless, so I’d thrown the bead. But Senior Kim Seo-young spoke in a voice full of resentment, as if she had no intention of letting that slide.
I replied in an awkward tone.
“I thought it’d be the same whether I got close or threw the bead…”
“Don’t do it next time.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Thud. Thud. We both stared at the monster drawing nearer for a moment before Senior Kim Seo-young kicked off first, heading toward its side.
I moved to the opposite side from her.
―Grk?
The monster flailed about in confusion, unsure what to do even though it could have just swung its arms. I lightly swung my scythe and sliced into one of its legs. Right after, Senior Kim Seo-young’s spear struck the other leg, nearly severing it.
―Grrruuuk!
The room turned pitch black as the monster melted into the darkened space. But it was useless against hunters who could sense presences.
‘There it is.’
Whoosh. A five-colored star appeared above my palm, and I blew on it gently. The stars floated lightly through the air before sticking to something.
―Kuk?
Boom boom boom. A massive explosion rocked the room, lighting it up again. In the now-bright space remained only the mid-boss’s corpse—more than half of it blown away—and some glittering items.
“This… looks like you don’t need any more teaching.”
Senior Kim Seo-young prodded the monster’s corpse with her spear as she spoke.
“Clean work. Where’d you learn this?”
“Yeah. There’s tons online. Stuff like what to do in dungeons.”
“True. Though most people would die trying to follow that. Must be because you’re S-Rank—it really makes a difference.”
Clank. A black door appeared on the once-white wall.
“Final boss already.”
“Lucky us.”
This time, I headed for the door first. I brushed my hand over its hole-riddled surface, then turned my head and said,
“Should I open it?”
“Doesn’t look like there’s anything else to see here, so obviously.”
With that, I put strength into my arm and pushed the door open. Beyond the ordinary-seeming door stretched a brightly lit space.
“It’s huge. Really huge.”
The room was made of black and white walls, split perfectly down the middle. Atop them sat a massive eye, one half white and one half black, heavily shut.
“Ji-eon, with a room this big, you have to watch out for―”
Flash. The enormous eye snapped open, and a ridiculously huge black-and-white arm burst from the wall. It slammed into the floor with a thud, sending violent tremors through the room.
“…it meaning the boss is huge.”
Ding♪
A cheerful alert chimed as massive hands rushed toward me at once.
Thud. I leaped upward to dodge, and the huge hand crashed into the wall, shaking the room violently. But it didn’t stop there—it bent midair and lunged at me floating in the air, colliding with me in the end.
Bang! My instinctively moving leg and arm clashed against it with a sharp sound before falling away.
“Ugh.”
A groan escaped me at the sharp pain in my leg, but I ignored it and landed lightly on the floor.
The moment I touched down, I shook off the leg that had collided, then glanced up above my head. There floated the source of that alert sound—a little pointer hovering over me.
“Ji-eon, you okay?”
“Fortunately, yeah.”
“But what’s that above your head…”
A mouse-cursor-like arrow pointed right at me, as if marking a target.
“Looks like a target marker. It’s not attacking me, at least.”
“Is that so―”
Boom! Before she could finish, a massive hand slammed down, pinning me to the floor. The impact wasn’t huge, but it still hurt, twisting my face involuntarily.
‘And I can’t even attack right now.’
Target equaled prey. Non-targets were third parties. While the prey dodged, the third party had to solve all the puzzles and attack the main body—the giant eye. If the prey attacked the eye, it would target the third party instead, so the prey could only evade. The problem was that solving the puzzles took time.
“Ji-eon!”
Even as I dodged nimbly, the hands pursued me relentlessly. Meanwhile, Senior Kim Seo-young switched her spear to a bow and fired at the eye, but the arrow scattered and vanished before it could reach.
“This is A-Rank…?”
Regrettably, it was A-Rank. The issue was the party size. With five people, four could solve the four puzzles and clear it quickly. But with just the two of us, the difficulty spiked.
‘Still, I can’t just keep taking hits.’
Pretending to flee, I drew near one wall and spotted something. An Othello-like pattern was drawn on it.
“Seo-young! Over here―”
Crash. Who even knew how many times I’d slammed into walls today. I’d been conserving my abilities to protect my body, so the injuries weren’t severe, but being unable to attack was starting to grate on me.
Suppressing my irritation, I dodged this way and that until Senior Kim Seo-young, hearing my shout, approached the wall. She stared at it briefly before swiftly solving the puzzle.
I had no idea what it even was, but she figured it out and solved it in one go. Impressive was an understatement. It was always amazing to watch. How did she solve it so fast? As expected from someone who’d topped her class all the way through college graduation.
‘Just a bit longer.’
About five minutes passed. Senior Kim Seo-young finished solving all the puzzles.
Ding♪
Another cheerful alert rang out, but nothing seemed to change. We could attack the eye now, but it wasn’t visible to the naked eye.
Senior Kim Seo-young hesitated a moment and attacked an arm. When that didn’t work, she grabbed her bow and loosed an arrow at the eye. The pure-white arrow streaked forward and…
Thuk.
“Yes!”
Her joyful voice echoed through the room. Joy was short-lived, though—she quickly composed herself, nocked another arrow, and focused. Thuk. Thuk. The giant eye took arrow after arrow without resistance.
At last, she drew her bow one final time. The arrow struck true, and the massive hands froze upright before dissolving into smoke and vanishing in an instant.
‘It’s over.’
I stretched out my limbs to loosen my stiff, battered body, then approached Senior Kim Seo-young.
She looked at me with a smile tinged with delight, but it was short-lived. Her face turned to shock, and she yelled,
“You! Hold on!”
“Yeah?”
“You pushed yourself too hard! Look at you!”
“Oh.”
A glance at myself showed my clothes torn in places, hair a mess, and my body covered in scrapes and bruises. At least my bones were intact.
Thinking back, this was a major injury for a first dungeon clear. It was unavoidable since I’d conserved my strength and hadn’t attacked the hands.
“Yeah, no wonder it hurt.”
“Wait! I’ll get a potion… Oh, right, we haven’t looted yet.”
Senior Kim Seo-young slumped, lamenting why she was stuck with the association. It was absurd that potions from monsters she killed weren’t even hers, enough to make her consider switching guilds—yet she complained without actually doing it. Impressive.
“Good thing the association didn’t scout a talent like you.”
“They did offer, actually. Before I registered as a hunter.”
“What? Before registering? Rude.”
Hunter scouting was ideally done after registration. Signing a contract without knowing your rank could disadvantage the hunter.
Everyone said to confirm your rank first, but some still messed up. If you saw and signed the contract yourself, the law couldn’t help.
“Well, it’s the association, so they’d probably follow the rules. They keep to the law well enough. Still, no way. They’d suck you dry.”
“Even if I wanted in, everyone around me would stop me.”
“Fair. You’ve got your brother.”
Regrettably, in the previous timeline, my brother hadn’t stopped me from joining the association—in fact, he’d quietly teased me. But that was the past, so I kept it to myself. It never happened in this timeline.
“Anyway, let’s grab the items… Huh?”
Senior Kim Seo-young looked around in confusion. I followed suit, bewildered, but couldn’t spot anything wrong.
“What’s wrong?”
“…No gate.”
The gate was the exit to the real world, appearing only after defeating the final boss. In other words, no gate meant…
“…It wasn’t the final boss?”
“Huh?”
Senior Kim Seo-young flipped open her watch’s lid and pulled out something—a device like a radio, bigger than the watch. She fiddled with it, then paled at whatever appeared on the screen.
“What happened?”
I asked with a frightened look. She’d been a hunter longer than me and knew more, so seeing her scared automatically spooked me too.
At least on the surface.
“Damn. No gate stone either.”
“Senior Kim Seo-young?”
“Oh. Sorry.”
She worked her mouth a bit before mysteriously stowing the radio-like device back in her watch. Then she glanced around again.
No exit, nothing. Silence filled the room. I snuck a peek at the watch on her wrist.
‘Almost…’
Seconds later, thud—the room vibrated faintly. As A- and S-Rank hunters, we both noticed it immediately.
“…Ji-eon, short explanation.”
“Yeah?”
“Dungeon rank isn’t displaying.”
“Wasn’t it definitely A-Rank?”
“Yeah. But checking now… error.”
“Then―”
Thud! This time, the floor shook massively. Whatever was coming was utterly unpredictable.
“…This has happened before.”
“Accidents must be pretty common. Games have bugs too, so makes sense.”
“Yeah. Think of it like a game. With a bug.”
Finally.
Boom! Cracks spiderwebbed across the black-and-white halved wall, and soon…
“…….”
Whoosh—a fierce wind howled as the wall fully collapsed. Beyond the rubble, there was only one thing.
Darkness.
Nothing was visible past the wall. The room’s light got sucked into that thick darkness.
“…Not another boss or anything. This is…”
“What do we do now?”
“Only one way.”
One way. Simple, really.
“On one, two, three, we jump.”
“Yes……. Yes? Wait. Jump where?”
“Into that black void.”
“Isn’t that dangerous?! At least let’s check―”
“One, two―”
“Wait!”
“Three!”
With that, we leaped through the crumbled wall.