Epic, huh.
No matter how many Legendary-grade items a hunter possessed, no one would ever underestimate the value of an Epic-grade item. Both were precious—treasures that could never truly be replaced.
"Epic-grade... So that's why it affected me too."
Cold sweat trickled down Haseong's pale, dry face. His expression barely changed, but when he spoke, there was an awkward tremor in his voice.
"Then, I'm sorry to ask this, but... could you possibly lend me an antidote potion?"
Unfortunately, I couldn't give him what he wanted.
"I don't have anything like that."
"...You're telling me that someone who uses an Epic-grade poison weapon doesn't carry any emergency antidotes?"
In the end, we were forced to take an unexpected break.
Seriously. What kind of disaster was this in the middle of a raid that had been going perfectly well?
***
A little later.
"I'm sorry. You handled it so casually, Hunter Kim, that I assumed it was only a Unique-grade item."
They were sitting on a large tree stump somewhere inside the dungeon.
The Green Dragon's nest had already been famous for its enormous size even before the dungeon began expanding. As long as the monsters in the immediate area had been cleared out, there was no shortage of places where they could rest.
"For now, how about drinking plenty of water?"
Giryeo had learned an important lesson from his previous mishap and had since made a point of carrying basic supplies—drinks and other necessities—whenever he entered a dungeon.
He opened the messenger bag hanging from his shoulder and pulled out a bottle of water.
Haseong looked surprised at first, but gratefully accepted it and took a drink.
"How is it? Are you all right?"
"Yes. If I rest here for a while, I don't think there'll be any problem."
Good thing the victim was an S-rank. Otherwise, this could have turned into a much bigger problem.
"If a Hunter actually died from something like this, I wonder how much of the responsibility would fall on me."
Swish.
Giryeo firmly slid Hydra back into its sheath.
At that moment, Haseong, still sitting on the stump, seemed unable to take his eyes off him.
"By the way, Hunter Kim, you don't use a holder, do you?"
What Jung Haseong called a "holder" was a leather belt commonly used in the hunter industry to secure a sword and its scabbard to the wearer's body.
There was no need to look far for an explanation as to why such things existed. Equipment obtained from dungeons often came in shapes and designs that made it difficult to wear or carry normally.
"Ah, that."
At those words, Giryeo lowered his gaze toward Jung Haseong's waist.
Beneath the long coat, he could make out the elaborate holder Haseong had just mentioned.
Even after seeing it, however, Giryeo felt no particular desire to own one himself.
"I'm fine the way I am. As long as my belt can hold my item box, that's enough for me."
Giryeo wasn't sure whether it was a trait unique to Alphaurums, but he found it strangely unsettling to leave a weapon imbued with magic hanging at his side instead of holding it himself.
So he had every intention of continuing to carry his sword the same way in the future.
Either carrying the sheathed longsword at his side or simply holding it loosely in one hand.
Besides, he hardly ever took part in serious battles anyway. Wasn't this good enough?
"And as far as portability goes, now that I have the item box, I don't have anything to complain about."
After hearing his answer, however, Haseong suddenly asked,
"What's the name of that sword?"
Another question about the artifact.
"[Hydra]. And as you can probably tell from what you just experienced, its effect is related to poison damage."
Giryeo answered casually.
Jung Haseong nodded to himself, then continued in the same calm tone.
"Between [Screaming Stakes] and [Hydra], you seem to use quite a few dangerous items. They both appear to be weapons whose effects can activate even against their owner..."
"Well, that's true."
Wait a second.
Come to think of it, had he ever told Haseong that he used [Screaming Stakes]?
"Hmm?"
Giryeo was briefly puzzled, but soon brushed the thought aside.
Haseong must have seen it somewhere—on the news, perhaps.
In truth, these little discrepancies were signs of something Giryeo had yet to realize.
"Uhm..."
In any case, Haseong finally stopped staring at Giryeo's sword.
He cleared his throat and spoke.
"There's something else I've been curious about."
"What is it?"
"Hunter Kim Giryeo, do you usually appraise your equipment yourself instead of having someone else do it?"
Giryeo nodded.
"Then... would you perhaps be willing to appraise my sword with that skill as well?"
At those words, Giryeo's nod came to an abrupt stop.
The "my sword" Haseong was referring to was the very first Legendary-grade weapon ever discovered in this world.
In other words, it was an item that had driven Earth's scholars nearly mad trying to understand it.
"I know that the skills used by appraisers are more or less the same, but since you're Hunter Kim—the person who made it through the Magic Tower's labyrinth—I thought yours might be different..."
Haseong's [Sword of Sunset] was a treasure praised above all for its rarity.
Yet despite that, no one had ever managed to uncover its true abilities.
Appraisers, scientists, and even Haseong himself had all tried and failed to determine what power the sword possessed.
Eventually, people had simply come to regard it as an exceptionally sturdy blade—one that wouldn't even melt when exposed to S-class flames.
"Hmm."
At Haseong's request, Giryeo looked down at the longsword hanging from the holder at his waist.
"All right. Let me see it for a moment."
Truthfully, Giryeo had always been curious about Legendary-grade items, so his answer came without much hesitation.
But for some reason, the moment the great wizard took hold of the crimson sword, his demeanor changed.
"..."
There was no visible change in his expression.
Yet to the sharpened senses of an S-rank Hunter, it was unmistakable.
The instant Kim Giryeo touched the sword, his breathing stopped.
"This is..."
The silence lasted only a moment.
Within three seconds, Giryeo resumed breathing and spoke in an even voice.
"I don't know either."
It was, in a sense, the obvious answer.
Legendary-grade items had remained mysterious treasures even after being examined by countless top-tier appraisers.
Logically speaking, there was no reason Kim Giryeo should have been able to analyze one either.
"Nothing at all?"
"Uh... yeah. Sorry, but even I have no idea what this is."
Giryeo scratched at his ear with his right hand, then quickly handed the [Sword of Sunset] back to its owner.
Haseong lowered his head, unable to completely hide his disappointment.
"I understand. Then we should resume the raid."
But the appraiser beside him stopped him.
Haseong's complexion had certainly improved compared to before, but a bluish discoloration still lingered on one of the young man's fingers.
"Well, it could get worse if you push yourself. Wouldn't it be better to rest a little longer?"
"But..."
"It's fine. Besides, with the number you've already taken down, it'll take the Magic Tower quite a while to catch up."
Giryeo said this while pulling another snack from his messenger bag.
It was a high-calorie chocolate bar that had recently become popular among hunters.
The two of them rested for a few more minutes, replenishing the energy they had spent.
Meanwhile, what was the Korea Magic Tower's raid team doing while those two leisurely took their break?
***
Meanwhile, the Korea Magic Tower's raid team.
"Green Dragon at the rear! Green Dragon at the rear!"
"Anyone with area-of-effect skills, use them over there! Now!"
"The invisibility's been broken—"
"Argh! My shield!"
Just as a certain Archmage had predicted, despite their relentless efforts, they were still far behind Haseong's hunting record.
Even among A-rank monsters, dragons were considered exceptionally troublesome opponents.
Their scales were simply too tough.
Most attacks couldn't penetrate them properly, and that naturally slowed the hunt to a crawl.
Time dragged on.
It felt like trying to kill an elephant with a hammer.
"Ha... that's enough."
But their ancestors had once hunted enormous mammoths.
So what was stopping them from doing the same now?
Boom!
Awakened users with Frost-type skills continued chaining their abilities together, freezing the dragons' skin.
Then came the fire.
Again and again, they blasted the frozen areas with concentrated firepower, destroying the layers of protein altered by the extreme temperature changes.
The modern hunters methodically continued their assault, putting the accumulated data from previous hunts to use.
And little by little, loot began appearing across the empty blue plains.
"Everyone, stop attacking! Stop! An item dropped. Target confirmed dead!"
At last, the entire pack of Green Dragons had been wiped out.
Ordinarily, this would have been the perfect chance for the Magic Tower team to overtake Haseong's kill count while he was resting.
Unfortunately, the people here had also reached the point where they needed a break.
Food. Restroom breaks.
No matter how awakened they were, humans still possessed bodies that weren't designed to work without pause all day.
"Whew— I'm exhausted. Seriously, why do these damn Green Dragons have to fight so dirty?"
"Haha! Right? The second you let your guard down, they sneak up on you using invisibility."
The members of the Korea Magic Tower Guild soon established a safe zone and began their lunch break.
The food they pulled out wasn't all that different from the high-calorie preserved rations Kim Giryeo carried around.
"Hmm."
A few minutes later, however, the A-rank Hunter sitting on a tree stump seemed to have grown tired of the jerky he ate every day.
With a mischievous look on his face, he suddenly struck up a conversation with his teammates.
"By the way, you know Hunter Kim Giryeo?"
For reference, the subject of their conversation was the S-rank Awakener who had accompanied them into the dungeon.
"Doesn't it totally seem like there's something going on between him and our Guild Leader?"
The young female Hunter listening to him chewed her kimbap while considering the question.
The middle-aged man leading the Korea Magic Tower's A-1 team was usually a fairly decent person.
Except for one fatal flaw.
He was far too interested in other people's love lives.
"I mean, I heard they were even seen shopping together at a clothing store before! Just the two of them!"
Did this team leader even know that people called him the "nosy old man" behind his back?
His subordinate gave him an unimpressed look.
"You really do try to pair people up every chance you get, don't you?"
The other man didn't even blink.
"Well, that's because there's no such thing as pure friendship between a man and a woman. Hunter Kim and the Guild Leader are around the same age, and they keep in touch all the time. How am I supposed not to be suspicious?"
"What do you mean, there's no such thing as friendship between a man and a woman?"
"Haha, I used to think the same way you do. But after living a little longer, I realized that friendship between a man and a woman is pretty hard to believe in—"
There was apparently a reason behind his foolish obsession.
"My ex-wife told me he was 'just a friend,' too. Turned out she'd been cheating on me with him for five years before I found out..."
"Ah."
A heavy silence descended.
The Korea Magic Tower guild members stiffly focused on their lunches, but their troublesome team leader carried on as though nothing had happened.
"But now that I think about it, I really can't imagine Kim Giryeo flirting with anyone."
As the leader of this raid, he had spoken with Kim Giryeo more than anyone else in the Korea Magic Tower Guild.
"No, seriously. He looks like a complete thug, but he's unbelievably polite. I was honestly shocked when I talked to him this time."
The Hunter chewing her kimbap suddenly thought that if that particular description of the S-rank Hunter ever reached his ears, their team leader might not live to see another day.
"And on top of that, he dresses like an office worker, wearing a suit practically every day. Just looking at him gives you this serious, dignified impression. Makes him look pretty impressive."
"Hmm."
"I guess I'll buy myself a suit."
Hearing that, the Hunter munching on her kimbap thought that no matter how many suits the team leader bought, he would never manage to look the same.
Besides, he wasn't even an S-rank.
With defense that low, wearing a suit into a dungeon would probably get him gravely injured before long.
Still, she wisely kept that thought to herself.
"Green Dragon at the front!"
It happened at that very moment.
A guild member monitoring the area with an analyzer suddenly shouted.
The Magic Tower hunters immediately sprang to their feet and raised their weapons.
Amid the sharp clatter of cold steel, one man called out,
"I'll hold it off! Those of you who are still chewing, swallow properly so you don't give yourselves indigestion. Get up slowly!"
Giving up his own break to take the lead for his subordinates.
At times like this, he truly did seem like the ideal team leader.
"Well, since we've got the opportunity, I might as well test this too..."
At that moment, one of the Magic Tower guild members noticed their superior pulling out an unfamiliar piece of equipment.
It was an antique-looking weapon with a wooden handle and a sharp dagger-like blade.
"[Screaming Stakes]? When did you buy that?"
Wasn't that the Unique-grade item that had become famous after a certain S-rank Hunter was seen using it?
"I-It's not like I bought it because of anyone! I just thought it might be a clever way to deal with an opponent that has such high defense."
Something about that answer felt suspicious.
The leader of Team 1 gripped [Screaming Stakes] tightly and activated his area-of-effect skill, Stone Spike, revealing the enemy's concealed position.
Then he drove the dagger's blade toward the exposed target.
And what happened next was—
"Kaaah!"
"Oh my!"
"That reckless idiot."
Driven into a frenzy by the pain, the Green Dragon went berserk, trampling everything in its path.
At the sight, the Magic Tower guild members dropped their chopsticks and rushed into the fray.