Why are you so surprised?
Crash!
The monster struck by the hurled shield let out a death cry. Giryeo fixed his gaze on the black fragments spilling from its corpse.
"Brother! Are you okay?!"
For now, he could understand why Yoonseung was clutching his hand and checking it over and over. On the surface, his palm was perfectly clean, without so much as a scratch. However, the protruding thorns of that flying tree had some kind of magic engraved into them.
"It's similar to a Screaming Stake. This is [Pain Infliction]."
The giant trees scattered throughout the area. And the weapons wielded by the small flying creatures born from those trees were, in fact, biological pain stimuli. Whenever an enemy entered a certain range, the thorns engraved with [Pain Infliction] would shoot out at high speed, forcibly making contact with the target.
"It's fine."
"What do you mean, you're okay?! That thing hurts like hell if it hits you! Ugh... You protected a worthless guy like me, and now you...?"
But what the alien found strange was the bodily fluid dripping from Yoonseung's eyes. He hadn't even been the one attacked, yet he was flailing around like a wounded deer, tears welling up as he made a fuss.
He had thought about it before—Earthlings were excessively sensitive to injuries suffered by their own kind. Some recoiled in disgust at the sight of torn flesh, while kindhearted individuals like Ahn Yoonseung responded with profound sympathy and sorrow.
He simply couldn't relate.
"Hmm."
Besides, Giryeo possessed an innate resistance to this sort of attack, so any sensation of pain that tried to surface was automatically disregarded.
"I'm really fine. So put the potion away."
"Brother...!"
"You can't waste painkillers in a situation like this. Are you an A-rank Hunter or not? What are you planning to do when the medicine runs out later, chew willow bark?"
Swish, swish.
Giryeo waved Yoonseung away when the other man tried to offer him a recovery potion. Then he surveyed his surroundings once more. Before understanding the monsters' sorcery, he hadn't noticed it, but now that he knew those creatures were using [Pain Infliction], an ability capable of bypassing Yoonseung's defenses, the overall situation was beginning to make sense.
"Yoonseung."
"Y, yes?"
"By any chance, are these trees' attacks... affecting °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° every Hunter who came here?"
As expected, the defensive-type Hunter standing nearby immediately answered.
"Yes, yes! It doesn't matter whether they're A-rank or B-rank—everyone is affected. Even if the thorn only brushes against their clothes, they become completely helpless!"
"As expected."
"This time, it's completely different from the [Flower Garden Baron]. At least with that one, if you bring in Hunters with mind-control abilities, you can counter it to some extent, right?"
"Because both sides are using the same category of mental attack."
"But those thorny trees weren't affected at all."
So that was why the Break still hadn't been dealt with. No wonder the faces around him were unfamiliar. Apparently, the gate hidden underground had spawned a new type of dungeon that had never appeared before.
And the plant-type monsters emerging from it were using a spell that inflicted pain indiscriminately, regardless of rank...
"No, wait. So you're saying everyone's too afraid of the pain to go inside that dome?"
When the S-rank Hunter asked, Ahn Yoonseung answered with an uneasy expression.
"Yes. Actually, we tried forcing our way in earlier... but one of the Hunters ended up looking like a hedgehog and nearly died from shock, so everyone pulled back..."
It was a new species of monster causing all manner of problems, somewhat different from the hallucination-inducing mechanism of the Screaming Stakes.
Avoiding pain was an instinct shared by all living creatures. Therefore, whenever a monster capable of extracting pain through mere physical contact appeared, intelligent beings would naturally attempt to resolve the situation while minimizing contact as much as possible. That dramatically reduced the efficiency with which the monitor could 'feed.'
As a result, the intelligent beings that had once visited Alphaut had gradually abandoned Giryeo's [Pain Infliction].
"A foolish Oisinche is still lingering around."
Since Earth was still in the early stages of occupation, it seemed rather outdated methods were still widespread.
Of course, none of that was Giryeo's concern.
Whether it was a dome made of thorny trees or anything else, he only intended to retrieve his freshly cooked tonkatsu and go straight home.
"I don't know. If you guys hate it that much, bring Hasseong here and have him burn the whole thing down. Though judging by the situation, he's probably tied up in another dungeon right now anyway."
"Brother Giryeo, what are we supposed to do about this? Everyone's trying to get rid of that huge dome, but..."
"_ _"
"The speed at which the Hunters cut down the stems and the speed at which they regenerate are exactly the same. Seriously, with regeneration like that, how is that thing only B-rank...?"
Swish.
At last, Giryeo began to concentrate.
He ignored everything Yoonseung said beside him and focused solely on his objective.
What he needed to know was the number of monsters gathered in front of a certain apartment building.
At that very moment, the entrance to a nearby apartment complex had been blocked by monsters that had escaped during the Dungeon Break, leaving the residents trapped inside.
So all he had to do was deal with those few creatures, retrieve his food from the delivery driver, and his work for the day would be finished.
"Uhm?"
...or so he had thought until just a moment ago.
"Wait, this is..."
At that moment, Kim Giryeo, who had spread out his senses to determine the number of creatures nearby, suddenly raised an eyebrow.
Yoonseung, who had been resting his forehead against one hand in silence, looked puzzled by the abrupt change in his expression.
But the blond Hunter said nothing further.
He simply pulled his treasured Hydra from his item box, drew it from its sheath, and steadied his breathing.
"Whoo..."
Drones, helicopters, and other forms of modern technology would have great difficulty observing what lay within the densely packed dome of black thorn trees.
The unfortunate employees trapped inside Sunhwan Bank.
And the superpowered bank robber who must be inside with them.
A robber.
A piece of trash who had tried to extort money from others by threatening them... with violence.
"Huh."
The sudden change in the S-rank Hunter's attitude could, in fact, be explained in a single sentence.
"Brother Giryeo?"
Kim Giryeo had just discovered through his scan that there was a dead Awakened inside the thorn forest dome.
"—This."
Immediately afterward, Giryeo tightened his grip on [Hydra] and shouted.
"Right. Anyway, it's a serious problem when innocent civilians are caught in danger. Fine, it can't be helped. All Hunters, fall back. I'll enter the dome right now."
"Yes!"
Having made such a bold declaration, Giryeo began walking straight toward the heart of the crisis.
"Yoonseung, don't follow me. There are survivors in the △△ apartment complex ahead. Go help them instead!"
Eliminate the witnesses for the perfect crime.
His schedule had flipped in an instant, entirely for his own personal gain.
It was truly an utterly shameless course of action, but as long as none of it showed on the outside, perhaps that was good enough?
"O, oh, yes!"
To think he would choose to march straight into the field without a moment's hesitation, even after experiencing the pain of those thorny vines—not that he actually had.
And on top of that, such astonishing intelligence-gathering ability, already one step ahead in grasping the surrounding rescue situation!
"Understood!"
As expected of Brother Giryeo!
With his eyes now shining with roughly 20% more admiration than before, Ahn Yoonseung promptly obeyed the order he had been given.
***
Whoosh.
A sharp rush of wind echoed from somewhere.
It was the sound of the plants' pointed organs rapidly growing and converging on a single target.
Crack!
Swish!
Whoosh!
Come to think of it, no wonder the people outside couldn't do anything.
The inside was like this...
"Ah."
I stopped where I stood and merely rolled my eyes around, surveying my surroundings.
"Isn't this a bit much?"
The moment they detect an intruder, the enemies fire spikes from every direction—north, south, east, and west.
Just as Ahn Yoonseung had said, the land inside the black dome had been completely overtaken by a forest of monsters.
Of course, thanks to my collection of epic-tier items and my body's modifications related to pain, I could ignore all the damage.
The problem was the force behind the spikes.
I wasn't knocked over, but I was effectively pinned in place, like an insect specimen skewered with needles.
"Damn it."
Still, it wasn't anything worth worrying about.
Fortunately, I had a reliable tool for dealing with these thorn trees.
I twisted my right wrist and brushed the tip of [Hydra] against the surrounding thorns.
!!
The stalks that had been writhing so vigorously only moments before failed to last even a few seconds before collapsing.
That's right.
Hydra.
The poison of this epic-grade weapon was effective even against plant-type creatures.
"Who told you to block my way?"
Moreover, hunting with Hydra came with another advantage.
The thorny vines growing throughout this place all possessed extraordinary regenerative ability. Even when their stems were severed, they returned to their original state almost immediately.
The standard method for stopping that regeneration was to locate and rupture the soft organs hidden randomly throughout their bodies.
But by using poison like this, I could conveniently skip that troublesome process altogether.
The lethal toxin would spread through the vascular tissue until the core itself withered away.
"That's it!"
Good.
Now that the obstacles had been cleared, shall we head over to that bank?
"Please, let them be safe..."
Rustle! Slice, crunch!
I swiftly reduced the thorn-tree creatures around me while muttering something resembling a prayer.
The dense, untamed forest gradually opened up, and after I hunted a few extra monsters just in case something unexpected happened, the buried cityscape slowly began to reveal itself again.
"Please, let our corpses be intact and not too badly damaged!"
That was when it happened.
Boom!
After I brought down a tree rooted in the middle of the road, a bright blue illuminated sign suddenly came into view.
[Sunhwan Bank, Shinseudong Branch]
The low-rise building where the bank employees were trapped.
And sure enough, when I focused my senses, I could feel a familiar yet alien trace of magical energy coming from inside.
"Unlike a living wizard, the flow of magical energy through the body has stopped."
In other words, a sorcerer's corpse.
The corners of my mouth rose unconsciously.
I'd been thinking this for a while now, but this truly was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
"What incredible luck!"
The outside was in complete chaos, and everyone was busy dealing with collapsed buildings.
The humans would probably be too occupied saving their surviving kin to pay much attention to anyone who had died inside the dome, at least for the time being.
"That robber's body is mine now!"
Naturally, I had already devised a foolproof method of concealing the corpse.
Good.
Then the only thing left to do now was...
***
"Kyaaak!"
"Aaack."
"Junwoo! Under the desk! Get down. Hurry!"
Boom!
A mass weighing 76kg slammed onto tiles polished so cleanly that they reflected the early-morning light, landing with a dull thud.
Yet only moments earlier, it hadn't been a lifeless object.
It had unmistakably been alive.
In fact, it had been so full of vitality that the entire room had reverberated with its furious shout of, "Bring me the money, you b*stards!"
A Hunter who had been forced into retirement after suffering a severe ankle injury while working.
He had spent all of his savings on an expensive potion he couldn't afford, hoping to cure the lingering effects of the injury.
Driven into desperation, he eventually planned a bank robbery to secure money for his living expenses and entertainment.
However, as anyone could see, the crime had failed.
It was a miserable end, almost like the fate of someone tortured to death, his corpse staring blankly with eyes swollen from burst blood vessels.
"E, eugh...?"
"P, please be quiet! Don't make a sound. 'That thing' will hear us."
Drip.
Blood flowed from the man's body and seeped into the gaps between the tiles.
When the emergency alarm was first triggered, the bank employees had assumed the two-man robbery team would be subdued by the police once they arrived.
But the robbery had been brought to an end by something far more unexpected.
Of all places, there happened to be a hidden gate directly beneath this bank.
And of all possible times, it had chosen this exact moment to burst open.
Kaaagh!
It was simply terrible luck.
The retired Hunter had mounted the security guard and threatened to completely necrotize his body unless the money was handed over.
Instead, he himself was ambushed by a tree monster that appeared inside the bank.
After a desperate struggle, he died moments ago from massive blood loss.
His younger accomplice, a man in his twenties surnamed Choi, made a quick decision and escaped from the bank, abandoning his partner behind.
But the instant he ran outside, he collided headfirst with the police officers who had just arrived at the scene and was immediately arrested.
After that, the three monsters began multiplying at a terrifying rate, rapidly creating the black dome that now imprisoned them all.
"Heuk, ugh..."
[ Sunhwan Bank ]
A shadow passed across the small transparent window of Sunhwan Bank, decorated with a playful emoticon.
Even in the morning light, the enormous creature writhed its massive body without pause, giving birth to smaller winged spawn each time it shuddered.
"Heuk."
And that wasn't all.
Inside the bank, another monster of the same species had completely demolished the customer seating area and claimed the main floor as its territory.
As a result, the bank employees couldn't recklessly attempt to reach the upper floors.
That tree seemed to take pleasure in a grotesque game of hide-and-seek, targeting and killing any human who made a conspicuous movement within its vicinity.
Dmmt.
The bank employees huddled beneath their desks, making themselves as small as possible to avoid provoking the monster.
Yet even though they were practically holding their breath, disaster eventually found them.
Whooodh...
The sound of something thin spinning rapidly through the air.
The male bank teller crouched beside the coin sorter began breathing heavily the instant he recognized what it was.
"A m, monster! It's a monster!"
The small tree that had attacked Ahn Yoonseung had now entered through the shattered entrance.
It was over.
If that thing began tearing through the bank, those who weren't even Awakened would have their internal organs pierced before they even had time to feel the pain.
"Ah... ah... Mother, Father..."
But then—
Perhaps their minds had been driven so far by terror that they had begun producing hallucinations.
Suddenly, a familiar sound reached the bank employees' ears.
Tak, tak, tak.
The sound of leather shoes.
As though a neatly dressed office worker had simply walked in to take care of some routine banking business.