Chapter 691: Gyu-Wriggle Gyu-Wriggle
While Kim Ho and Hong Yeonhwa enjoyed a peaceful moment together,
the raid was still underway in the deep layers of the dungeon building.
WHOOOOOSH—!
A vicious wind kept lashing Dang Gyu-young and Seo Ye-in across the face.
The weather was only part of it.
The bigger reason was their speed.
They were flying through the air on the back of a giant serpent.
The serpent should originally have been covered in golden feathers.
Now, though, it was nothing but black.
It was the fifth shadow undead.
The Feathered Serpent.
And behind them, something else was closing in even faster as they flew.
Along with the piercing cry unique to a bird of prey.
SKREEEE—!
Seo Ye-in and Fast-Luckless instantly twisted around and opened fire with the mana gun.
Blue bullets rained wildly through the air, and the pursuers veered wide to evade.
They were large beasts with the heads, wings, and talons of eagles, and the bodies and tails of lions.
Monsters known as griffons, or griffins.
And there were heavily armored knights riding on top of them.
Taken together, they were Griffon Knights.
One of them banked skillfully through the air, then shot straight at them with a thick lance leveled forward.
WHOOOSH—!
Irritation flickered across Dang Gyu-young’s face.
“These bastards, seriously.”
They were already stressed enough from an aerial battle they weren’t used to, plus the nonstop pursuit.
And once this was over, Kim Ho—the one who had picked this dungeon—was going to pay for that stress.
“Just wait until I get out of here.”
He’d been pulling on their cheeks less lately, right?
With that vow in mind, Dang Gyu-young yanked the Feathered Serpent sharply sideways, and the Griffon Knight’s lance barely scraped past the tip of its tail.
Seo Ye-in fired at that exact instant.
RATATAT!
The knight and griffon took a burst of mana rounds to the back of the head and dropped out of the sky.
And that wasn’t the end of it.
Seo Ye-in and Fast-Luckless steadily kept reducing the number of pursuers.
RATATATAT!
Dungeon No. 161, [Griffon Bandit Camp].
The people who ruled this entire region had once been a griffon “order of knights,” but for a complicated mix of reasons, had changed professions.
Their current job was banditry.
The clear condition was simple: destroy the camp and kill the boss.
Of course, being bandits didn’t mean they had lost the skills they’d once had as knights, so each one of them was a serious opponent.
And as for the boss, he was a former captain of the order.
On top of that, the camp and outposts sat high in the mountains, which made this dungeon incredibly difficult if you didn’t have some kind of flight method.
Dang Gyu-young was better off than most thanks to their flying shadow undead.
RATATAT!
The other piece of good news was that Seo Ye-in’s accuracy was rising sharply the longer the battle continued.
Her gray eyes sparkled as she spoke.
“...Super genius.”
“Adaptive gunner.”
“Total chameleon.”
One after another, the Griffon Knights were shot down.
The last one remaining stopped chasing them, then turned and fled.
It probably wasn’t just running for its life.
Most likely, it meant to come back with reinforcements.
Either way, that gave Dang Gyu-young and Seo Ye-in a chance to breathe, and even the Feathered Serpent began gliding through the air at a somewhat more relaxed pace.
The moment they had some room to spare, Fast-Luckless’s eyes lit up.
“...Bucket list.”
Apparently there had been something she had absolutely wanted to do if she ever got the chance to fly through the sky.
A moment later, she went beyond merely standing up.
She balanced on one foot.
Then she suddenly started wobbling, lost her footing, and fell right off.
“......”
“......”
Seo Ye-in and Dang Gyu-young silently looked down at Fast-Luckless as she grew more distant below them.
Then—
FLASH!
A hologram projected with a sharp burst of light, and she was resummoned behind them.
“...Mistake.”
“Waste of mana.”
“Won’t do it again.”
True to her word, Fast-Luckless stopped fooling around and sat down quietly.
A little later, they spotted a building perched on the peak of a tall mountain.
It looked less like an outpost and more like a storehouse.
One of the hidden pieces in this dungeon.
And one of its material supply points.
When they landed, the Griffon Knights guarding the storehouse came out to greet them with their weapons raised.
“Who the hell are—”
CRACK!
They were immediately sent sprawling after taking a hit from the club.
Dang Gyu-young loosened up their body a little, then tapped their own waist with a fist.
“Ow. I wasn’t on that thing for [N O V E L I G H T] that long, and my back already hurts.”
“Mine too.”
“I did drive pretty rough, huh?”
The Feathered Serpent’s ride quality was atrocious.
It swayed nonstop even under normal conditions because it was a serpent, and on top of that, Dang Gyu-young had been jerking it up and down, left and right, to dodge enemy attacks the whole time.
Of course, they hadn’t really had another option.
If it kept taking hits and got reverse-summoned, they would just plummet to their deaths.
“You’ll probably get used to it if you keep riding it. Think of it as practice too.”
“...? Okay.”
Seo Ye-in tilted her head, puzzled, but nodded anyway.
BOOM!
Then the two of them smashed the storehouse door open and went inside.
The place was piled high with monster and animal byproducts.
Hides, horns, claws, teeth, and more.
Griffons were close to carnivores, and given their size, they also needed enormous amounts of food.
That meant they had to keep hunting all over the mountain range.
Naturally, that produced a constant stream of byproducts.
And since the profits from gathering and selling those parts were substantial, storehouses like this existed.
Dang Gyu-young and Seo Ye-in promptly swept up everything that received item judgment—that is, everything they could actually take as rewards—into their inventories.
[Thorn Turtle Shell(B)]
[Chilly Monkey Hide(C+)] x2
[Pink Queen Ant Carapace(B)]
Even just what they gathered here was already considerable in both rank and volume.
But this was only the beginning.
There were still several more storehouses left to strip clean.
Even so, before they put their backs through that again, the two decided to take a short break.
The walkthrough had specifically told them to wait for a bit here.
They chewed on the calorie bars they had brought as snacks and looked out over the scenery.
Then Dang Gyu-young spoke.
“So. Hyeseong.”
“Yes.”
“What do you think would happen if I said I wanted to come along too?”
“That’s fine.”
Seo Ye-in answered without even the slightest hesitation.
Dang Gyu-young put on a mischievous smile and asked again.
“Really? You wouldn’t get to hang out alone with Kim Ho.”
“Winter break.”
“You invited me.”
The original plan had been for Seo Ye-in to bring only Kim Ho home.
But then Seo Ye-in had rather forcefully insisted on coming along, and after a long bout of consideration, Dang Gyu-young had accepted it.
A conversation like this had happened back then.
“It’s fine if you come too, but I’m adding one condition.”
“...?”
“If you ever go to Hyeseong or somewhere like that later, you have to take me too.”
“So you’re saying you’ll return the favor?”
“Yes.”
“Thanks.”
Both Seo Ye-ins nodded at the same time.
Dang Gyu-young looked at the two of them with fond eyes, then said,
“I’ll just take the thought. You two go by yourselves.”
“...You’re okay with that?”
“Not at all.”
“...?”
Seo Ye-in tilted her head, and Dang Gyu-young flashed her a teasing grin.
“I just figured this time, it’d be better not to butt in.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re considerate.”
The warm atmosphere only lasted for a moment before Dang Gyu-young’s expression turned serious.
“But later, you have to grant me a favor too. Got it?”
“Confirmed.”
“Set things up so Kim Ho and I can be alone sometime. Like when you two went to the entertainment district.”
“Time alone.”
“Ho time.”
And so, the renegotiation came to a successful close.
Then, as they looked back out over the scenery, black dots came into view.
They were, of course, Griffon Knights.
Just as expected, the one who had run away earlier had returned with reinforcements.
So that’s why the walkthrough said to wait here.
If they had taken off right away, they would have run into them in the air.
And the battle would have been much more exhausting than before.
SKREEEE—!
A griffon let out a sharp battle cry.
The heavily armored knights landed one after another, surrounding Dang Gyu-young and Seo Ye-in.
One of them, who looked stronger than the rest, stepped forward and glared at them.
Then he saw the storehouse hanging wide open and anger flashed across his face.
“You’ve crossed the line by far. It wasn’t enough to beat down our brothers—you even looted the storehouse.”
“You’re bandits. What line are you even talking about? You were the ones who started this in the first place.”
Dang Gyu-young shot back without missing a beat.
The Griffon Knight’s face twitched.
Then a bitter smile spread across it.
“...Fair enough. If you live by taking from others, you should always be prepared to lose what’s yours in turn.”
“Feels like you’re gonna be the one on the losing end today.”
“We’ll see about that.”
The griffons and knights settled into battle stances and slowly began tightening the encirclement.
Even so, Dang Gyu-young and Seo Ye-in didn’t look tense in the slightest.
If anything, they looked pleased.
“You’re only a pain when you buzz around like mosquitoes.”
Were they really Griffon Knights when they were on the ground?
Or were they just a griffon plus a knight?
And I’m way stronger on the ground.
SHHHH—
The shadow at Dang Gyu-young’s feet spread wide, and human-shaped figures started rising from it one after another.
As the Gyu shadow undead emerged and even an [Umbral Corridor] rose up as well,
Seo Ye-in and Fast-Luckless gripped the pot and spoke in turn.
“We’ll wipe them out.”
“We’ll teach them a lesson.”
*****
After killing time outside for quite a while, Shin Byeongcheol headed down into the underground levels of the dungeon building.
There was still quite a bit of time left before Kim Ho and Hong Yeonhwa’s raid would end—probably around half a day—but he wanted to go wait in advance.
Sometimes raids ended earlier than expected.
And if they came out with no guide around, that would be a complete disaster.
He had another reason too.
They’ve rotated out by now, right?
He wanted to avoid the Discipline Committee’s patrol hours.
Song Cheonhye in particular.
Her tracking ability had improved dramatically lately, and he had already come within a hair’s breadth of getting caught for real.
That made him deeply uncomfortable, so he had decided the best approach was simply not to cross paths with her at all.
They’re still human, you know.
No matter how much they were future heroes and elite students, they couldn’t stay awake twenty-four hours a day.
And they couldn’t spend all their time patrolling the underground floors either.
They had to rest, train, and run dungeons themselves.
Sure enough, when he stepped onto Floor D and looked around, Song Cheonhye was nowhere in sight.
He could only sense other Discipline Committee members and teachers here and there.
Then why do I have such a bad feeling about this?
He still didn’t feel like he had been found out.
Maybe it was just his imagination.
Of course, he didn’t have any choice.
If he wasn’t there, Kim Ho’s pair would have to make it back up on their own.
So he had to do his job as guide.
Suppressing the growing sense of unease pressing in on him, Shin Byeongcheol quickened his pace toward the bottom of Floor D.
Then, just as he was about to cross over to Floor C, his face froze solid.
...!
Because the vague anxiety he’d been feeling had just turned real.
Cold sweat broke out across him as he muttered to himself,
“Ahem. Did I take a wrong turn? How did I end up on Floor D? Guess I’d better head back up~”
“It’s too late to play dumb.”
A familiar voice came from behind his shoulder.
Shin Byeongcheol turned around with a creak.
Song Cheonhye was standing there.
Sending him an icy stare.
And crackling electricity between both hands.
CRACKLE.