Chapter 190
Chapter 190
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 190
Chapter Title: Part 2 Chapter 53
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Dun woke up to head to the area where the Abyss uniform had been found, but Seol Do-yun whined about being tired from the late hour and refused to get out of bed.
Dun scooped Seol Do-yun up and placed him across Lycullin's back, then climbed on in front.
"Seol Do-yun, that outfit. It's our uniform, right?"
"Yeah. More than that, you still remember those days, huh?"
Reading the unease in Dun's eyes and tone, Seol Do-yun wriggled upright and draped his arms over Dun's shoulders to keep from falling to the ground.
"I remember. More than that, don't hug so tight."
"You'll fall if I don't hold on."
Seol Do-yun leaned in close to Dun's ear and whispered softly.
Noticing how Dun hated being held around the shoulders, Seol Do-yun wrapped his arms around Dun's waist instead and gripped him firmly.
With his arms locked around Dun's waist like a seatbelt, Seol Do-yun rested his chin on Dun's shoulder.
Lycullin was running so fast that if he didn't hold on, it felt like he'd fly right off.
"Hey, don't grab my waist."
"Then where should I hold?"
"Balance yourself."
The moment Seol Do-yun let go of his waist, he wobbled and grabbed Dun's hair to steady himself.
"......"
"......"
Seol Do-yun and Dun's gazes met. Suddenly wearing an embarrassed expression, Seol Do-yun cautiously opened his mouth.
"It wasn't on purpose. But it's better with less body contact. Right?"
"Just hold my waist."
"I want to hold this."
Dun scowled, his hair still clutched in Seol Do-yun's fist, and pulled him forward to lie prone across his front.
"Dun, I'm getting motion sick."
Ignoring him, Dun checked the map. They were almost at the spot where the clothes had been found.
'Why is our uniform here?'
His mind had been racing with that thought. Korean group gear washing up all the way to the Arctic felt incredibly suspicious.
He recalled the kids dragged off by overseers as children for "nutrient" processing or "disposal." Had they been dumped in the Arctic?
Lost in thought, they arrived at the destination before he knew it.
It was night, so the moss clinging to the ceiling no longer glowed.
Instead, creatures resembling fireflies flitted around near the ceiling moss.
They looked just like stars dancing in the night sky.
But the dancing stars weren't enough to make out the surroundings, so Dun asked Lycullin to light up the area.
Lycullin lowered his head and tensed his body, increasing the brightness and heat of his flame fur.
Seol Do-yun hopped off Lycullin's back before he could get scorched and stretched.
"Dun, do you remember the Mermaid Gate?"
"Yeah. The one the Association Chairman got caught in, right?"
"That's part of it, but there's another side story you don't know."
"What's that?"
Dun tilted his head at Seol Do-yun's sudden mention of the Mermaid Gate.
"It's where I first opened my eyes. Before I knew I was a Bachinum, I thought my parents had dumped me in the sea, but turns out I was just spawned there."
Seol Do-yun turned to gaze at the gray sea.
It reflected Lycullin's intense flames, sparkling red and fierce even in the darkness.
"I saw everything in the Mermaid Gate firsthand, so I know exactly what happened during that incident. Kim Woo-sung was there too.
He got power from someone there— the ability to extract various monster materials as liquids."
"You're saying this connects to our uniform turning up in the Arctic?"
Dun flattened himself to the ground and checked for footprints around where the clothes were found. He spoke in a sharp, anxious tone.
Seol Do-yun grinned and continued.
"It's a bit different, but I'll tell you a story with the same vibe. Remember Luisa, the former emperor of the Licht Empire?"
"Yeah."
She seemed determined to keep going, so it probably had some meaningful connection to their current situation.
No footprints near where the clothes were found. Dun ruffled his own hair roughly and nodded.
"She suddenly gained immense magical power too. She became an irreplaceable force, elevating the empire's status. But behind the scenes, she promoted monster production."
"But."
"If we assume dungeons and gates were engineered by those who granted them power, then to manage both worlds, they must have created various tools. That's why we need to pay close attention to those who received power so directly."
Dun's expression hardened at that. Seol Do-yun draped an arm over his shoulder and continued in a calm voice.
"Luisa's role in promoting monster production is confirmed. So what was Kim Woo-sung's role?"
Dun grimaced, shook his head, and spoke in a voice full of disbelief.
"But Kim Woo-sung made all those helpful potions for hunters, didn't he? Hard to say he's on their side."
"He did it to hold onto his position longer. Luisa had great power and charisma too, so neighboring kingdoms and factions didn't dare挑衅 the Licht Empire. That's how she held onto the throne despite her sloppy internal management. While securing her rule like that, she expanded monster forces during her reign. Call it a smokescreen for their greater cause."
"......"
Dun's face darkened as he listened quietly to Seol Do-yun.
"Montghell is overflowing with high-level monsters. And those high-level monsters manage the ones outside Montghell, including the Elemental Continent..."
Dun clenched his teeth, his voice sinking low as he spoke. Seol Do-yun nodded and finished for him.
"But Tronlop lacks those high-level monsters. Maybe Kim Woo-sung's role was..."
"I don't want to hear it."
Dun clamped his hand over Seol Do-yun's mouth. Listening to him sparked a hypothesis in Dun's mind.
'The ultimate goal of the Abyss Project might be...'
Might be...
Dun pressed both hands to his forehead.
'To create powerful monsters for deployment in Tronlop.'
The kids who feared and loathed monsters might have been tortured into becoming them.
'You guys are heroes!'
'Thanks to you, hunters survive one more, civilians get saved one more.'
The overseers' honeyed words to calm the raging kids came back to him.
Disgusting phrases forcing heroism and sacrifice on children, making them abandon their own happiness. Yet some kids actually felt their lives had meaning because of it.
'I heard my sacrifice saved a lot of lives... Hehe, Mom and Dad said they didn't need me, but now someone does.'
Kids injected with torture-level drugs, convincing themselves their pain had purpose—they got scorned by others whose lives were just as hard.
They got called trash for assigning meaning to their worthless reject lives, comforting themselves.
Seol Do-yun especially ripped into it, calling it X-tier propaganda from the overseers that made them passively accept the injustice.
'We can't escape here anyway!! If we're just gonna get used up and die someday, better to think of ourselves as cool heroes than pitiful lab rats! I, I want to think of myself as hope!'
Kids who died brainwashing themselves like that flashed in his mind.
Dun let out a hollow laugh.
Were even the small dreams and hopes he harbored in life a luxury? And they weren't even for himself, but for others.
Just hypothesizing that the Abyss Project was about breeding powerful monsters made his chest tighten and his stomach churn.
Seol Do-yun stared at Dun's deeply contorted expression.
"What're you thinking?"
"Nothing."
"Really?"
The mood suggested Dun was shocked, but Seol Do-yun was curious which point had hit him.
Finding the Abyss uniform had just felt like picking up one more piece of info to him, so he mimicked Dun's expression without overdoing it.
Maybe mimicking it would let him feel the same emotion.
Making the same face suddenly made his heart sting like it'd been scraped with sandpaper, for no reason he could name.
"It's just a hypothesis, Dun. Nothing confirmed yet."
Seol Do-yun's face muscles ached from mimicking the unfamiliar expression. He raised both thumbs and hooked them onto the corners of Dun's mouth, pulling them up.
"Smile~"
"Ah, what're you doing. Let's finish scouting."
Dun swatted Seol Do-yun's hands away like flies and summoned Ulr-origin creatures.
[Command us, O unique and great leader...]
A pink dolphin with wings, Yenz, poked its head out of the gray water.
"Scout inside there. If you see anything wearing these cloth scraps, report it. Bring back any human-like items you find."
[As you command...]
"Go."
Dun anxiously scouted the nearby land but found nothing and returned.
As he sat by the water with arms crossed, he felt the mana link with the creatures sever.
"What happened down there?"
Dun resummoned the reversed creatures and asked.
[Th-that... We have no excuse.]
[There was a monster... A monster with power beyond reach...]
Crack!
Yenz's body split in half mid-report, urgently reversed into a dab stone.
Soon, a figure slowly emerged from the water.
Two arms, two legs. Humanoid form, but with webbing between its fingers like a frog's, gills at the neck.
A horned lizard tail swished with every movement. The monster wore tattered Abyss lab clothes.
"Info window."
Dun scowled and fixed his gaze on the monster, pulling up its info.
[Abyss Monster] Hwang Ki-tae
Level: 495
Race: Abyss
Traits: Aquatic Breathing, Flame Resistance, Cold Resistance.
"......"
Dun stared blankly at his old friend. Much changed, but those three familiar letters felt so welcoming.
"Hey, Hwang Ki-tae!"
"......?"
Seol Do-yun tilted his head, not expecting Dun to greet the monsterized Hwang Ki-tae so warmly.
If it was just childhood memories, he'd question the monsterization, but he reacted like he knew Ki-tae was dead.
Had he heard news while secretly staying at the Association?
Seol Do-yun grabbed Dun, who was fearlessly approaching Hwang Ki-tae with a dazed look.
"Dun, snap out of it."
"I-It's fine. I-I have Creature Conversion."
Seol Do-yun released his grip. Dun's eyes screamed he'd kill anyone who interfered.
Dun extended a hand, signaling no harm, and approached the monsterized Hwang Ki-tae.
Ever since losing friends he called family in a gate near the orphanage, Dun—no, Isaera—had blamed himself for those around him dying due to his powers.
Suddenly, memories of Hwang Ki-tae vanishing from his sight flooded back.
Weak-willed but high-attack, always causing trouble and talking big.
Soft-hearted, so he never hurt others easily; indecisive, but understood people from many angles.
That's why he suffered more in the Abyss Project than the somewhat selfish kids who knew how to live for themselves.
When that kid returned as a cold corpse one day, Dun's head throbbed like it would split, guilt and helplessness choking him.
That had been then. But now, even in different form, Hwang Ki-tae lived—Dun's heart began to lift.
Memories he'd forcibly buried revived, along with the emotions he'd suppressed.
"Creature Conversion."
[Conversion impossible for this race.]
Dun's face paled. His excited heart pounded with despair.
"Monster Domination."
[Domination impossible for this race.]
"Creature Conversion."
[Conversion impossible for this race.]
"Monster Domination."
[Domination impossible for this race.]
No matter how many times he shouted, only "impossible race" notifications appeared.
"Creature Conversion!!!"
"Monster Domination!!!"
Dun screamed repeatedly, inwardly spamming skill names to revert his changed friend, but nothing happened.
He tore at his hair, tried a few more times.
[......Who are you?]
Hwang Ki-tae, who'd been eyeing Dun, scanned him quickly with slitted yellow pupils.
[......Familiar presence. Kin? Kin came without dying.]
"......Do you remember me?"
<......?>
Hwang Ki-tae tilted his head and reached into the air.
Gray water streams circled above his head, forming a spear shape.
The water spear froze into ice, then sharp crystals formed along its edge.
Tears flowed from the monster called Hwang Ki-tae's eyes.
[Did we connect before? I like you for no reason. Missed you so much.]
Hwang Ki-tae wiped his tears and lowered his raised arm.
[Let's stay together.]
At the same moment, countless ice spears rained down on Dun and Seol Do-yun.
Seol Do-yun, who'd been alternating glances between Hwang Ki-tae and Dun in thought, stuck close to Dun upon seeing the ice spears.
Hwang Ki-tae's level was 495 per the broken system window— a direct hit could kill painfully.
Seol Do-yun handed Dun a long wooden spear.
Just before the ice spears hit their heads, Dun spun the long spear overhead, batting them away.
"Seol Do-yun, Creature Conversion and Domination aren't working on him. Find the reason, and I'll keep you safe."
Seol Do-yun gazed steadily at Dun. It had been a while since he'd seen him this shaken.
He'd had that expression when they first met.
Like he was about to cry any second.
"Deal. But not a single drop of blood."
Seol Do-yun summoned a massive wooden bow and grinned widely. Dun nodded, stepping in front of him.