Chapter 5
Chapter 5
At the end of the prison tangled like a maze,
an old, rusted iron door came into view.
Boss Area
As he stepped closer, the system window appeared.
It seemed this was the boss room.
Lee Jeonseok turned around and spoke.
“Everyone, please wait here.”
At the end of his gaze,
around twenty people were gathered.
They were hikers who had been caught in the dungeon break.
“W-what if a monster appears…”
Someone spoke anxiously, but Lee Jeonseok answered in a dry tone.
“You’ll have to endure it.”
“What?”
“No, how are we supposed to…”
“Or what, would you like to go into the boss room with me?”
Lee Jeonseok pointed at the rusted iron door.
The people immediately fell silent.
It was only natural.
Entering a boss room
was hardly different from saying you wanted to die.
Leaving the now-quiet group behind him,
Lee Jeonseok stepped forward.
His current level was 23.
His stats had risen to Agility 25 and Stamina 17.
At that point, his body felt noticeably lighter.
Changes had clearly begun to appear.
His Virtue had also risen to 6250,
but there had been no particular physical changes.
“Feels like something should happen though.”
Virtue and Sin.
Those two stats hadn’t been added for no reason.
They surely weren’t just for display.
Of course, it was only speculation.
Whether there would be changes or not,
he would naturally find out as he continued raising Virtue.
Creak—
Lee Jeonseok pushed open the iron door of the boss room.
A bleak wind and sound rushed out.
You have entered the Boss Area.
A blue window appeared afterward.
Inside the door was fairly large.
A circular space shaped like a dome.
Iron bars surrounded the area on all sides.
And at the center.
“A throne?”
There was a throne crudely stitched together with bones and scraps of flesh.
“Grrr…”
And from that throne,
a ghoul suddenly climbed down, dropped to its knees, and bowed its head.
“…What?”
Lee Jeonseok couldn’t help but be surprised.
He had been preparing to enter battle at any moment.
Yet suddenly the boss had knelt.
Ghoul King Lv. 42
Bright red letters floated above its head.
“Is this a fake?”
No.
There were no signs of that.
It was definitely the boss.
Then why?
Lee Jeonseok slowly approached it.
It was truly strange.
Step. Step.
The closer Lee Jeonseok got,
“Grrr…”
the more the boss trembled as if in fear.
Even when he stood right in front of it,
the creature did not lift its head.
It wasn’t a trick.
Not a gimmick either.
It didn’t seem like it was preparing an ambush.
“What the hell is this?”
A phenomenon he had never experienced before.
He had seen hunters despair before bosses countless times.
But a boss fearing an awakened human?
That was a first.
Perhaps because of that,
Lee Jeonseok could not help considering one possibility.
Just like how his Ignition flames had turned dark crimson,
maybe this too was influenced by his experiences in hell.
Ghouls were walking corpses.
Creatures that sensed death more keenly than anything else.
And above all—
“Experiences carved into the soul… was it? They said those sometimes affect the outside world.”
It was something he had heard in hell.
When the grim reapers visited even the Avici Hell just to relieve stress,
Lee Jeonseok had vaguely overheard their casual conversations while being tortured.
Perhaps it was the influence of that “rank.”
“Please… spare… me…”
The boss spoke something.
A series of incomprehensible events.
But that was that, and this was this.
Thud!
Lee Jeonseok kicked the boss’s head.
“Gah…!”
The boss fell backward, dry blood spilling from its mouth.
The ghoul sprawled before the throne.
Lee Jeonseok stepped on its solar plexus.
“Sorry, but I have to kill you to get out of here.”
Who exactly was the boss and who was the human here?
The ghoul, who should have been the boss, was trembling in fear.
“Spare… spare me…”
If its face hadn’t already been rotten and decayed,
even Lee Jeonseok might have felt a hint of guilt.
But what stood before him was a hideous monster.
Thud.
Without the slightest hesitation,
Lee Jeonseok drove his blade down into the boss’s neck.
And then—
Whoosh.
From the knife in his hand,
dark crimson flames erupted.
“Graaah!”
A monstrous scream followed.
The boss could not resist at all.
It could only suffer helplessly.
Soon the flames burned even the rotten flesh into ash.
Boss Monster “Ghoul King” has been defeated.
Dungeon cleared.
Congratulations!
Level has increased!
Level has increased!
Life has been drained.
You obtain one random trait.
You have acquired “King of the Dead C”.
System messages poured out like a monitor scroll.
Two levels gained,
and a new trait.
King of the Dead.
C rank.
A Gate has opened!
Shraaaak!
A gate formed beyond the system window.
A blue crack split the air.
“That was an anticlimactic boss fight.”
Lee Jeonseok loosened his shoulders and put away the knife.
The fight had ended far easier than expected.
Still, looking at the results alone,
it wasn’t bad.
Level 25.
He gained not only stats but also a trait.
And his Virtue as well.
He would need to test the trait to know its effect.
But overall,
it was a pretty decent reward.
“You can leave through here.”
Lee Jeonseok brought the people who had been waiting outside and guided them toward the gate.
“Thank you…”
“Thank you so much.”
They thanked him as they stepped through the gate.
Then—
“Excuse me…!”
One woman approached him.
She was the same person he had rescued earlier.
“Thank you for saving me!”
She bowed deeply.
“Here, this is my phone number.”
She suddenly handed him a small piece of paper.
Looking closely, it was a business card.
Choi Eunha
Manager of the Hwasan Guild
“Hwasan Guild…”
Hwasan.
A fairly famous guild.
Ranked 7th domestically.
It possessed three S-rank hunters and had some fame even overseas.
As far as Lee Jeonseok knew,
the upper executives of Hwasan were all direct relatives of the guild master.
And that family name
was Choi.
Was this woman, Choi Eunha, one of them?
“Well, it could just be the same surname.”
Choi wasn’t exactly rare.
“Please let me treat you to a meal sometime.”
Choi Eunha said that just before leaving through the gate.
“Ah… sure.”
Lee Jeonseok answered awkwardly.
He hadn’t saved her expecting something like that,
but it would be rude to reject goodwill.
When he finally accepted the business card,
“Well then…”
Choi Eunha bowed again and left through the gate.
“Hmm.”
Left alone,
Lee Jeonseok stared at the card.
Then—
Whoosh.
He burned it using Ignition.
You can’t reject goodwill.
True.
But he had no intention of going through the hassle of a meal or something like a blind date.
If she was grateful, keeping that feeling was enough.
Choi Eunha had probably said it out of courtesy anyway.
The dungeon will soon collapse.
The system appeared as if urging him.
Only then did Lee Jeonseok leave the dungeon.
You have changed the fate of many people!
Virtue increases by 3000.
Sin slightly decreases.
People had gathered at Baegundae.
Not only hikers.
Men in black suits were stationed all over Baegundae.
Police—
no, perhaps association employees.
It seemed they had responded to a report.
“Sir, were you the one who cleared the dungeon?”
One of them approached Lee Jeonseok.
Apparently the survivors who had come out earlier had already told them.
“Yes.”
When Lee Jeonseok nodded,
the association employee made a suggestion that was almost not a suggestion.
“Would you be able to talk with us for a moment?”
It sounded nearly like a threat.
If he refused, he would probably be suspected as a villain.
Besides, there was no reason to refuse.
“That’s fine.”
Lee Jeonseok accepted.
He followed the employee down Bukhansan.
At the entrance of the hiking trail,
a black sedan was parked.
The conversation, called an investigation,
took place inside the car.
Why he had been at Baegundae.
Whether he possessed a hunter license.
If not, when he awakened.
Lee Jeonseok roughly explained that he had climbed Bukhansan to see the sunrise and had coincidentally been caught in the dungeon break.
Awakening?
“I just happened to awaken at the right time… haha.”
He awkwardly laughed and demonstrated Ignition.
Dark crimson flames rose from his hand.
That explanation should be enough.
A B-rank skill.
A ghoul-type monster.
Even if he had just awakened,
under those conditions, someone with talent could theoretically clear the dungeon.
And since his flames were clearly different from the normal Ignition,
it wouldn’t easily be connected to the Yeomyeong Society members he had killed at the department store.
“I see.”
The association employee scribbled something on a tablet.
After about twenty more minutes,
“Thank you for your cooperation.”
Lee Jeonseok got out of the car after hearing the employee’s thanks.
Why did they have so many questions…
It was enough to make him sigh.
More importantly—
“Looks like the bus will take a while.”
Lee Jeonseok checked the bus schedule.
Then he opened his status window.
“Let’s check the new trait.”
King of the Dead.
It was time to see its effect.
King of the Dead
Rank C
Effect: Gains reverence from the dead
Proficiency 0 percent
“…?”
Lee Jeonseok frowned after seeing the effect.
“What does that even mean?”
Gains reverence from the dead.
It was far too abstract.
The dead.
In other words, the deceased.
Did that mean he could command them?
Or did they simply feel reverence?
“Hmm…”
It was vague.
And since it wasn’t something he could test immediately,
it felt even more uncertain.
Should he consider it good or not?
“Well, I’ll find out once I enter a dungeon.”
The hunter exam was coming up soon.
During the exam, under the supervision of an examiner, candidates cleared an F-rank dungeon.
The type of dungeon could be chosen by the examinee,
and among them were undead-type dungeons.
“If it’s F-rank, skeletons should appear.”
Skeletons.
Unlike ghouls, they possessed fairly sturdy defenses.
They would probably be suitable test subjects.
Screech—
Just then, the bus stopped at the station.
Looking forward to the upcoming hunter exam,
Lee Jeonseok boarded the bus that would take him home.