Seonwoo Yeon felt as though all the blood in her body had frozen.
It was horrifying.
So this must have been what people meant when they said their mind went blank.
Before her lay Kim Giryeo, covered in wounds as though he had been put through an Iron Maiden, his body pierced all over. Near the doorway farther down the corridor stood thorn-covered plates drenched in what looked like human blood.
Could Kim Giryeo's body have been impaled by something like that?
Dungeon traps were often coated with poison. Even powerful hunters who entered nests appropriate to their rank sometimes fell victim to them, since such traps frequently possessed properties capable of bypassing resistances and penetrating defenses.
"...Heuk!"
Seonwoo Yeon gasped for breath.
"Heuk! K... Kim... Hunter Kim Giryeo."
Her face went deathly pale as she rushed toward the hunter.
But no matter how many times she called his name or shook his shoulders, he gave no response.
Eventually, a familiar expression of human emotion appeared on Seonwoo Yeon's face.
A small amount of fluid welled up in her almond-shaped eyes.
"This, this... what is this..."
With tears gathering in her eyes, Seonwoo Yeon turned toward the other awakened ones who had come with her.
Their reactions were no different.
Esther had gone pale, one hand clamped over her mouth in shock. Jung Haseong's expression remained unchanged, but the uncontrollable surge of magic power around him betrayed just how shaken and confused he truly was.
"Huh."
A trembling sound escaped from someone barely holding herself together.
Among them, Esther—the one whose mentality most closely resembled that of the Alphaur—was the first to regain enough composure to pour the recovery medicine they had brought onto the wounded man's injuries.
Was it because too much time had passed since the wounds were inflicted?
Or was it because the person lying before her was already dead, leaving the medicine nothing to heal?
For some reason, Kim Giryeo's wounds showed no sign of closing.
The tears pooled in Seonwoo Yeon's eyes could no longer bear their own weight and fell to the ground in heavy drops.
"Huh."
She cried.
But rather than grief, it was closer to a reaction born from shock.
Despite everything they had been through together, perhaps because of their respective personalities, Seonwoo Yeon and Kim Giryeo's relationship had ultimately remained rather businesslike.
From Seonwoo Yeon's perspective, it was almost as though an assistant manager from a neighboring department—someone she occasionally crossed paths with—had suddenly died.
And yet the sight still struck her with tremendous force.
Fear overwhelmed her so completely that even the color drained from her face.
Kim Giryeo had always seemed like a man of steel.
He wouldn't so much as flinch even when confronted by a cannibalistic fairy capable of speaking like a human. He had subdued the rampaging Imoggi, and his knowledge of the world around him seemed almost limitless.
Even Seonwoo Yeon, who had little interest in research herself, had admired him from afar for his extraordinary abilities as a hunter.
And now the person she had admired had suddenly appeared before her in this state.
How could anyone not be frightened?
Worse still, the injuries covering his body were so gruesome that anyone with a weak stomach would have struggled to look at them directly.
"._."
Seonwoo Yeon once again found herself on the verge of tears.
The injuries weren't hers, yet she inefficiently empathized with another person's pain and genuinely suffered because of it.
Then the Association employee suddenly remembered the time the blond hunter had helped her in the past, and her entire body began to tremble, her hands shaking violently.
It was then.
Haa...
Something even more shocking happened.
While Seonwoo Yeon sobbed with her head lowered...
The man who had looked unmistakably like a corpse slowly drew in a deep breath.
"Kyaa!"
"Why... why are you..."
"Seonwoo Yeon-ssi! Look over there! Look! Hunter Kim's eyes just opened!"
"Heuk!"
The surroundings instantly descended into chaos.
Perhaps the recovery potion Esther had just applied was finally taking effect, because the wounds covering Kim Giryeo's body began healing rapidly.
The rescue team, realizing that Kim Giryeo was alive, rushed toward him and shouted.
"Giryeo-ssi! Giryeo-ssi!"
"Hunter Kim Giryeo!"
"Are, are you okay? Can you hear me?"
The blond hunter turned his gaze toward the voices that were loud enough to sting his ears.
"Ugh, that scared me."
The moment Giryeo successfully transferred his consciousness back into his original body, the faces of the hunters crowding directly in front of him startled him.
The noise had been so overwhelming that he had hurriedly stopped controlling the monster, but he hadn't expected S-rank hunters to be the ones causing such a commotion.
Cough, cough.
Apparently, the ribs broken by the trap had punctured one of his lungs.
Giryeo quickly spat out the clotted blood lodged in his throat before uttering his first words.
"You guys got here quickly."
"Is now really the time to say something like that?!"
When Esther raised her voice, Giryeo reflexively lifted his eyebrows.
Because of his innate disposition, he often had difficulty grasping the context behind emotional expressions. It was almost like dealing with a genuine psychopath rather than someone merely pretending not to understand.
Her reddened face, slightly scrunched up as she shouted at him, registered in Giryeo's mind as mild anger rather than concern or relief.
At least, that was how an alien attempting to interpret human emotions understood it.
"She's angry?"
Still, Giryeo possessed enough intelligence to guess why the Cursed Sorcerer might be upset.
So he quickly voiced the first explanation that came to mind.
Unfortunately, it wasn't the correct one.
"Ah, I'm sorry. I said I'd hold out as best I could in here, but seeing me like this must've startled you."
"What did you say?"
"I tried to open the door in a hurry and made a small mistake..."
After flexing his forearm several times to make sure the muscles were functioning properly, Giryeo shifted his body and pointed toward one side.
"As you can see, I got caught in a trap. Well, I suppose hunters with unlocking skills are naturally more likely to fall into traps than everyone else..."
Muttered.
Giryeo sincerely apologized for failing to properly fulfill his role in preventing the collapse.
Of course, since he had known the monster population of this dungeon from the beginning, the apology itself wasn't particularly sincere.
He merely wanted to avoid being scolded by powerful S-rank hunters.
So he piled on unnecessary excuses, trying to minimize his own fault as much as possible.
"Crazy."
Unfortunately, Kim Giryeo's words and actions produced almost exactly the opposite effect.
With every new sentence that came out of his mouth, the rescue team's cortisol levels steadily rose.
In other words, their blood pressure was climbing.
"._."
"._."
This was a fairly typical reaction among planetary inhabitants when their vessel had been taken over by a foreign consciousness.
Kim Giryeo's unnervingly rational attitude created an enormous sense of dissonance for them.
Jung Haseong had already experienced that feeling intensely during the [Labyrinth of the 13th Month] incident.
But only now did the other two companions begin to understand it on a deeper level.
"Why is everyone acting like this? Did you get injured on the way here or something?"
There was something fundamentally wrong with that hunter.
It was no longer something that could be hidden behind strength or exceptional coping abilities.
Everyone present could sense something foreign about him.
Of course, that didn't mean they had suddenly discovered that his soul originated from a binary star system.
The Earthlings merely interpreted that strange sense of alienness in their own ways.
The first to recover from the shock was Esther, Korea's second-ranked hunter.
"Giryeo-ssi, please don't talk for now. I can hear something wrong with your breathing. Is there a serious injury inside?"
"It's not that bad..."
While the conversation between the S-rank hunters continued, Seonwoo Yeon, still deathly pale, pulled out a handkerchief and gently wiped the blood running down Kim Giryeo's chin.
The gesture made Giryeo briefly turn his head.
Only then did he notice something glistening in the Earthling's eyes.
"Tears? Don't tell me... she cried because I was hurt...?"
Just because of that?
There was only one wound, yet two people were suffering from it.
The Alphaur paused for a moment, thinking that surely no other mammal could be this wasteful.
Earthlings' peculiar sensitivity was certainly an interesting phenomenon he would have liked to investigate further.
Unfortunately, now wasn't the time.
Giryeo stopped studying Seonwoo Yeon's face and briefly rolled his eyes beneath his eyelids.
After confirming that his connection to the six-legged amphibian—the temporary golem—had been completely severed, he immediately turned his attention to his missing companions.
"...Anyway, this isn't the time for us to be doing this."
He urged them to hurry and help Ahn Yoonseung.
"If you go through this door, you'll reach a fork. Turn left there, and you'll quickly sense Hunter Ahn Yoonseung's magic power. Please begin the rescue from there."
"No, the person right in front of us is in this condition! How can we just leave you like this?!"
This was precisely how Kim Giryeo could adapt so easily to unexpected situations.
Even after using medicine, it was obvious that his severe injuries would require considerable time before he could move properly again.
From a purely practical standpoint, the blond hunter's argument was flawless.
The problem was that the man calmly making that argument currently had half his body destroyed.
"Understood. Then I'll head to Neo Team 3 immediately."
"Seonwoo Yeon-ssi, the effect of your skill has worn off, correct? Please reactivate it immediately."
They were bewildered, but ultimately made their decision quickly.
The group began running toward the dungeon survivors, who were desperately awaiting rescue even at that very moment.
And then, as though it had been waiting for precisely that moment, a heavy "thud" echoed from somewhere deep within the long corridor beyond the door...
***
It was a familiar kind of tension.
The pressure felt like being a human stranded alone in space, so overwhelming that even breathing seemed impossible.
Thud!
At the deafening sound from somewhere nearby, the almond-eyed young man tightened his grip on his shield.
They were trapped in an unfamiliar otherworldly place.
Neo Sisters' regular Team 3 had originally entered an A-rank gate known as the [Rotating Heaven Labyrinth], a dungeon so familiar that its攻略 had long since been standardized.
Yet the routine mission they had begun that morning had rapidly spiraled into disaster.
Tick.
[Unconfirmed Gate]
[Description: No gate information available.]
[Rank: S]
"Even after checking several times, it's still the same."
The surroundings had an ancient, classical °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° atmosphere reminiscent of the Inca civilization, yet everything gleamed with the bright, threatening brilliance of gold.
Ahn Yoonseung looked up at the inverted ceiling of the dungeon and spoke.
Behind him, Team 3's leader scratched her head before answering.
"Yeah. I usually try not to say anything too negative, but... I think we're screwed."
No matter how skilled or powerful A-rank elites were, survival could never be guaranteed when facing monsters from a top-tier gate.
"Everyone, let's move farther down the corridor. The monster we saw earlier is still following us."
"Tsk."
Fortunately, their team included a support-type awakened one with detection skills, allowing them to avoid the monster for the time being.
But would simply buying time really change anything?
This was an S-rank nest.
What if outside support took more than a day to arrive?
"Kough..."
One of the team members could no longer withstand the pressure and let out a pained groan.
Fear quickly spread through the group.
But at that moment, the young man standing in formation turned his head toward them without abandoning his stance.
Due to the nature of his awakened ability, the defensive hunter usually had his back turned toward his teammates.
That made seeing his face like this inside a dungeon surprisingly rare.
Yet the expression he wore now was exactly the same as always.
"Don't worry, everyone."
Ahn Yoonseung was smiling.
Of course, it wasn't because he had excessive confidence in his defensive abilities.
Whether by good fortune or bad, the members of regular Team 3 had happened to make a rather unusual arrangement before entering the dungeon that day.
"We're definitely going to be rescued."
"Yoonseung-ah..."
"We're the team that was supposed to have lunch with Hunter Kim Giryeo! Right?"
Even if only to make us pay the cancellation fee for the restaurant reservation, he has to be desperately looking for us right now.
Yoonseung said it jokingly, a smile mixed into his voice.
Cold sweat continued to run down his face from tension and confusion, but his determination remained unwavering.
"Let's hold out a little longer."
He trusted his one and only mentor.
At the same time, he tried to imitate the calm demeanor Korea's fourth S-rank hunter always displayed inside dungeons.
Thud!
No matter how carefully they concealed themselves, eventually the otherworldly monsters were bound to detect the scent of human flesh.
But as long as he didn't die.
As long as he could hold out.
That hunter would definitely come to rescue him.
"Since it's not coming directly toward us, I guess the monster's sense of smell isn't that sharp."
"Should I use an ice skill to lower the temperature around us?"
"No, don't. If it's sensitive to magic power, using a skill could attract it instead..."
And so Neo Sisters' regular Team 3 continued their cautious retreat, moving with the care of someone testing every stone before crossing a bridge, sustained by unwavering faith.
Before long, their persistence began to bear fruit.
Thud!
"Hm? What was that? That sound just now... didn't it suddenly get much closer...?"
Just as the repeated crashing—the headbutting of the S-rank boss monster—grew unmistakably louder,
Tak, tak, tak.
A new sound reached them from across the corridor.
Footsteps.
Human footsteps.
"Huh?"
They turned toward the sound.
And from the far end of the corridor emerged awakened ones whose appearance in this deadly nest felt like a ray of light.
"Uh-uh!"
"Oh!"
"Gasp! Oh my god, oh my god...! This is insane. I almost screamed without realizing it."
A hunter wrapped in a long white coat.
And beside her appeared another figure whose mere presence was overwhelming.
The legendary top two figures of Korea's hunter industry were rushing straight toward them.
The Neo Sisters hunters froze with their mouths hanging open.
After all, this was a high-level mutated gate.
They had never imagined that a rescue operation would begin this quickly.
"It looks like Giryeo must've done something!"
As expected of Giryeo!
Sparkle.
Deeply moved by the sight of the S-rank hunters, Yoonseung's eyes shone with admiration.
He instinctively turned his gaze, searching for the person who had just come to mind.
But for some reason, there wasn't a trace of golden hair anywhere.
And rather than warmly greeting the survivors, the rescue team arrived with tense expressions and immediately began shouting orders.
"Ah! Oh my god, everyone, fall back!"
"Everyone, move into this corridor and keep at least two blocks away! Only the healing-type awakened ones should remain within range to use their skills! Immediately!"
Huh?
Just as the survivors stared back in confusion, heavy footsteps suddenly thundered from the right-hand corridor connected to the room.
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
The ruler of this nest possessed a special ability called [Giant-killing].
In other words, the sand-colored reptile absolutely despised having any 'strong opponents' of equal or greater power enter its territory.
And it made that hatred painfully obvious.