Chapter 25
The World Tree sprout had gone sullen because the Manager wouldn’t listen.
I hadn’t followed the advice, and Saessak had noticeably drooped.
Its two leaves hung limp, and they even trembled slowly like a person on the verge of tears.
To cheer it up, I kept stroking it the whole way over to the Muju Ant Cave Dungeon through the warp gate.
The drooping leaves had no intention of straightening out.
Was I the strange one for not being able to stop smiling at how cute it looked?
“Is that your girlfriend?”
“Pardon?”
The man with snake eyes had asked the question out of nowhere.
Come to think of it, I had been grinning to myself while staring at my smartphone, so it made sense that he’d get the wrong idea.
He’d probably thought I was tapping at the screen to send a conversation message instead of feeding it mana.
“Haha, no, not at all.”
I gave an awkward laugh and denied it.
Then I tucked the smartphone into my pocket and stepped down from the warp gate.
At this rate, I might end up with the image of some idiot hopelessly obsessed with his girlfriend.
Even though I’d never had one in my life.
“There’s no need to be shy.”
“Really, it’s nothing like that.”
“Hmm, I see.”
Saessak is dissatisfied with the man’s gaze.
Saessak kept voicing its complaints every time the snake-eyed man spoke.
Not long ago, even when I called for it, it hadn’t answered at all. Today, though, it kept sending me its opinions on its own.
Was it because I’d been feeding it mana through Warm Touch so steadily that it could finally express itself?
Or maybe it had grown fond of me after once feeling my presence in its head through World Tree Summon.
“Kim Jung-cheol! I knew it was you!”
Someone came out from the dungeon management office in front of the Ant Cave Dungeon and walked over this way.
Then he called out to the three men who had been walking ahead of us.
He’d bragged that he’d been keeping this dungeon perfectly clean for two years, and seeing the manager greet them so warmly made it sound like that claim was true.
“Long time no see, Director!”
So the potbellied man must have been the head of this dungeon office.
Kim Jung-cheol glanced back at us once, then instructed, “Finish your preparations.”
After that, he quickly strode off toward the office director.
His attitude, acting as if he were the leader of this party, made one of my eyes lift on its own.
Kind of irritating, wasn’t it?
“Keep your eyes in line.”
The large man among Kim Jung-cheol’s party shot me a glare and snapped at me.
Just as I’d found Kim Jung-cheol irritating, they seemed to find me irritating too.
Hmm. I didn’t like this guy’s tone either.
Looks like I’d picked the wrong party to join.
That was my fault for rushing into things too quickly because I’d been trying to run away to Tae-cheon.
I should smooth this over before it got more annoying.
“And if I don’t keep them in line, what then?”
“What?”
“……”
But my mouth, always so troublesome, spat out words that had nothing to do with my intentions.
I’d definitely meant to say something to calm things down, but what came out instead was pure provocation.
Haa. At this point, there was no point pretending I hadn’t meant it....
Saessak advises that I should just throw dirt at him right now.
Saessak slipped me another one of its thoughts.
That advice made me want to laugh.
Should I really just throw dirt at him right now and leave for somewhere else?
I’d get hit with the failure penalty, but if I handled another Association quest properly, that would solve it.
“You’re laughing?”
“This bastard’s lost his mind.”
My smile must not have pleased them, because the two men stared even more fiercely than before.
Then they stepped forward, as if they were about to grab me by the collar, reaching out their arms.
The rookie hunter standing beside us tried to intervene and stepped between me and the men, but the bigger man’s strength forced him to stagger backward.
“U-um—”
Even as he was shoved aside, the young man didn’t stop trying to calm things down.
Seeing the youngest of them try so hard to play peacemaker made me feel a little guilty.
What the hell were we even doing here, coming to clear a party quest?
I felt a little self-loathing too.
For now, I supposed I should try being the adult here.
“Haa, I’ll—”
“What’s going on? Why is everyone just standing around instead of getting ready?”
I dragged up what little adult dignity I had from deep inside me.
But I couldn’t show it.
Because Kim Jung-cheol had come back.
He looked back and forth between me and his two younger brothers, then sighed as if he understood the situation immediately.
Right away, he glared at his brothers and scolded them.
“I told you to get ready, so why are you picking fights again?”
“Huh? That’s unfair!”
“No, that bastard was the one who was insulting our hyung—”
“Kwon O-seok, Han Gi-hae. Are you talking back to me?”
“...Sorry.”
“We’ll correct it.”
Sorry? Correct it?
What was this, some kind of military role-play?
As I watched them with a disgusted look, Kim Jung-cheol lowered his head slightly to me.
He was the one picking up the adult dignity I’d been about to use.
“I’m sorry. If you were displeased, I apologize.”
“...It’s fine. It was nothing.”
“Hmm, then let’s get to the point. I spoke with the director, and the situation’s getting tight. He’s asking us to begin the purge immediately.”
Tight.
That meant there were giant ants swarming all through the cave.
Leave them alone a little longer, and giant ants would start pouring out from the cave.
The alien mana would overflow and spread the dungeon’s territory outward.
It definitely wasn’t the time to be starting arguments and brawls.
Apparently they’d reached the same conclusion, because each of them began taking weapons and armor out of their magic pouches and putting them on.
Kim Jung-cheol wore a longsword and light armor, while Kwon O-seok and Han Gi-hae carried a greatsword and a one-handed sword respectively, both in heavy armor.
The rookie hunter took out a spear and equipped armor only on his upper and lower body.
Judging from the many scratches on the armor, the other parts had probably been sent in for repair or had been destroyed.
I strapped my longsword to my right hip.
Since my armor was still at Jae-i's Blacksmith for repairs, the only thing I had on me was the leather forearm guard on my right arm.
Kim Jung-cheol stared at me.
So did the rookie hunter, tilting his head in confusion.
“You’re not wearing armor?”
“Ah.”
So that’s why they’d been looking at me like that.
“I left it at the blacksmith for repairs.”
“What? Then—”
“It’s fine.”
I had bark activated, which had held up even against the Watcher’s beams.
Unless monsters from an A-rank gate came surging at me all at once, there was no problem.
The attack of a giant ant in an E-rank dungeon was nothing special.
“But...”
The rookie hunter, who didn’t know that, looked at me with clear worry.
Kim Jung-cheol seemed worried too, asking, “Are you sure you’ll be all right?”
Meanwhile, Kwon O-seok and Han Gi-hae were muttering under their breath in voices so small they were almost inaudible. “A D-ranker acting all big for nothing,” and, “Leave him be. He’s only going to get in over his head.”
Ugh. I can hear you, you morons.
“I really am fine.”
“Hmm... well, if you say so.”
Even as he answered that way, Kim Jung-cheol added, sounding concerned, “We’ll go in first. The two of you wait here for five to ten minutes, then come in. O-seok, Gi-hae, let’s go.”
“Huh? Us?”
Kwon O-seok and Han Gi-hae looked at Kim Jung-cheol as if they couldn’t see why they had to do that.
Of course, their resistance didn’t last long.
The moment Kim Jung-cheol frowned, they instantly wilted and ran into the ant cave.
Their stupid little retreat looked a bit like a dog with its tail between its legs, which made them strangely cute.
“Then I’ll see you later.”
With that, Kim Jung-cheol went into the cave after his two younger brothers.
The rookie hunter beside me asked in a worried voice, “Will they be okay?”
“They should be. They’re C-rank hunters after all. Besides, they said from the beginning that they’d be fine on their own.”
“...I guess so?”
Maybe because he was only a one-year rookie hunter?
He really was an anxious kid.
A pair of C-rank hunters had no reason to get into trouble in an E-rank dungeon.
Even if they got hurt because of a mistake or a moment of carelessness, or ran into an evolved monster, they could still get away.
“Come to think of it, I don’t even know your name. I’m Baek Do-woon.”
“I’m Kim Jae-sik. I’m twenty.”
“I’m twenty-six.”
When I held out my hand to shake, Kim Jae-sik shifted his spear to his other hand and extended his right.
As we shook hands, he tilted his head.
“Uh, Baek Do-woon? Do I maybe know you?”
“No, no way.”
Even after I denied it, Kim Jae-sik kept studying me closely.
Since it sounded like a hassle if he recognized me, I quickly turned my face away.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
After waiting outside for about ten minutes, we entered the ant cave.
The cave was dark, but Kim Jae-sik took a luminous stone from his magic pouch and lit the area around us.
He even gave me a one-hour luminous stone as a precaution against any unexpected situation.
What a considerate kid.
“...Oh?”
Inside the cave, giant ant corpses lay everywhere.
Every one of them had been killed in a single cut or stab.
Not bad.
Honestly, I was impressed by their skill.
Kim Jae-sik beside me let out an admiring breath as well while looking at the dead giant ants.
But he wasn’t admiring them blindly.
In the hand gripping his spear so tightly, I could see a spark of rivalry, a silent question of whether he could do that too.
Saessak shudders in disgust.
Disgust?
That wasn’t just saying it didn’t like something.
Saessak hadn’t even been disgusted by the Skeleton Lord, one of the filthiest monsters out there.
And yet it found the sight of a few giant ant corpses disgusting?
...Was it because, being a plant, it hated bugs?
Plants and ants were usually said to have a symbiotic relationship, but maybe giant ants were different since they weren’t ordinary insects but monsters.
While I was mulling over that odd thought, a fork in the tunnel came into view.
Kim Jung-cheol’s group was waiting there for us.
“Did we keep you waiting?”
“Not at all. You both came quickly.”
“Still, a fork in the path. Very ant cave-like.”
When I said that, Kim Jae-sik beside me nodded.
Kim Jung-cheol pointed back the way we’d come and said, “As you’ve probably seen on the way in, there are too many of them. It looks like we won’t be able to work together.”
“So you want us to split up?”
“Yes. I think we’ll need to separate and hunt them one by one. We’ll each need to pick a path.”
It was sudden.
But I couldn’t exactly object without thinking.
According to Kim Jung-cheol, this ant cave dungeon was about to overflow with mana.
We needed to reduce the number of ants as quickly as possible.
Probably only after we’d swept the entire cave clean and killed the queen ant would the cleanup be over.
So accepting his suggestion was probably the most sensible choice.
If I were alone, that would have been the end of it.
I turned and looked at Kim Jae-sik.
Now that he’d suddenly been told he had to fight giant ants on his own, all the color had drained from his face.
“……”
He seemed to want to argue that this was different from what they’d said when they pulled him in.
But he also seemed unable to push back because he knew the situation was bad.
I’d better step in.
Kim Jae-sik had only just become a hunter.
It was far too harsh to tell him to hunt overflowing giant ants by himself.
“You three go separately. I’ll go with Jae-sik.”
“Do-woon hyung...”
Hyung, huh?
Kim Jung-cheol’s group looked at me with displeased expressions.
“But the current situation—”
“Jae-sik is a one-year E-rank hunter.”
I cut off Kim Jung-cheol as he tried to persuade me.
He was about to say the situation was bad, but it wasn’t worth hearing.
There were three C-rank hunters and one D-rank hunter here.
And they wanted a rookie hunter’s help because the four of them couldn’t stop an E-rank dungeon from overflowing?
Honestly, they’d be better off going back to the management office right now, giving up the quest, and asking the Association’s hunters for backup.
If you were human, you ought to know when to be embarrassed.
“Sending him off alone is the same as telling him to die. Is your goal to kill him by any chance?”
“...No, that’s not it.”
As he answered, Kim Jung-cheol lowered his head to Kim Jae-sik.
Unlike him, the expressions on Kwon O-seok and Han Gi-hae’s faces were awful.
Their faces had turned bright red, and it was obvious they wanted to pick a fight.
“I was shortsighted. I’m sorry.”
“N-no! I’m the one who’s weak, so I’m sorry...”
“We’ll go separately. The two of you go together. That would be best.”
Even while agreeing with my opinion, Kim Jung-cheol’s expression toward me was far from friendly.
He wasn’t turning red and blue the way his younger brothers were, but his face had stiffened slightly.
It was as though he wanted to say, How dare someone like you challenge me?
Just from that, I understood why Kwon O-seok and Han Gi-hae kept calling him hyung this, hyung that.
People flock together in their own kind.
Saessak reports that the human man’s gaze is disgusting.
Yeah, I’d been thinking pretty much the same thing.