Inside the CEO’s office of the Rising Guild.
Siul sat alone on the sofa, leaning back as he waited for Park Jung-gi.
“This is seriously ridiculous.”
That evening, Siul was scheduled to raid an A-Rank Dungeon.
The problem was that the schedule had only been arranged that very day.
More precisely, another guild had panicked when the day of the Gate rupture arrived and dumped an A-Rank Gate onto the market for next to nothing.
The moment Park Jung-gi saw it, he shouted, ‘This is an opportunity!’ and immediately bought the Gate.
And who was left to deal with the consequences?
“Me.”
Siul let out a hollow laugh.
‘Still, he promised to meet whatever payout terms I demand.’
That alone was enough for Siul to let it slide.
He planned to demand five times the usual payout rate for this Dungeon.
He was going to clear it alone rather than as part of a team, so he considered that much compensation only fair.
‘At least he’s bringing me A-Rank Gates like this.’
The more he leveled up, the more precious opportunities to trigger Quests became.
For a small-to-mid-sized guild like this to keep acquiring high-ranking Gates at short intervals—and then entrust those Dungeons exclusively to Siul—were both things he ought to be grateful for.
“I’ll finish this one cleanly and celebrate with Korean beef and beer again.”
Siul lowered his head and looked down at his lap.
“You can do well today too, right?”
The moment Siul spoke toward his lap, the air above it rippled.
Turquoise scales flashed into view, and a tiny body dropped lightly onto his legs.
“Woof!”
Zero released its Invisibility and barked brightly.
“Hey, hey!”
Siul jumped and hurriedly looked around.
“You’re not supposed to turn visible yet…! I told you to stay hidden until we enter the Dungeon…!”
Siul urgently whispered into Zero’s ear.
The office door was closed, but someone could pass by outside at any moment.
Zero barked, “Woof!” and rustled its scales.
Their color disappeared again, leaving only the sensation of weight on Siul’s lap.
“Whew….”
Siul rubbed his chest after the fright.
Bringing a baby dragon outside was always a nerve-racking experience.
‘Maybe a Dungeon is still too much for it…. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought it.’
The thought worried him, but another part of him disagreed.
After observing Zero for the past few days, Siul no longer thought of it as something that simply needed to be protected.
‘It could communicate about as well as an elementary school kid from the very day it was born, and it instinctively learned how to fly and turn invisible.’
On top of that terrifying growth rate, Zero also possessed the hunting instincts of a true monster.
‘When I took it to the playground before dawn, it caught insects and rats. And when I kept it inside the apartment for an entire day, it whined because it wanted to go outside.’
Judging from all that, Zero could be considered a monster among monsters, born with an innate craving to hunt.
‘Let’s take it along once and see how it goes. I would’ve had to show it a Dungeon sooner or later anyway.’
While Siul was lost in thought, footsteps came from outside.
KNOCK KNOCK.
After the knock, the door immediately opened and Park Jung-gi entered.
“Mr. Siul!”
Park Jung-gi’s booming voice struck Siul’s eardrums.
Even the way he spread his arms wide in welcome was excessive.
“Thank you so much. I truly appreciate you making time immediately despite such an unreasonable request.”
Park Jung-gi repeatedly bowed at the waist.
“An A-Rank Dungeon on the very day of the Gate rupture. Even I would’ve threatened to walk out and demanded to know whether this counted as normal working conditions.”
Park Jung-gi praised Siul for his generosity and expressed endless gratitude.
Siul, meanwhile, did not even answer.
Without rising from the sofa, he merely raised one hand.
SWISH!
All five of Siul’s fingers spread wide.
“The payout rate for clearing the Dungeon is five times the usual amount. Anything less, and I’m not going.”
“…….”
It was an uncompromising condition.
Park Jung-gi merely blinked before breaking into an even broader smile.
“Of course! You deserve to be compensated for all the work you’re putting in, Mr. Siul. Hahaha.”
He did not hesitate for even a second.
There was not even the slightest attempt at negotiation.
Siul could clearly feel how desperately Park Jung-gi wanted to keep such a valuable asset from slipping through his fingers.
“All right, then. Let’s begin the Dungeon briefing immediately.”
Park Jung-gi sat across from Siul and took out a tablet.
After tapping the screen several times, a presentation containing the organized Dungeon manual appeared.
“We don’t have much time, so I’ll cover only the essentials.”
The Dungeon’s structure.
The monsters that appeared inside.
Variables that required caution.
The explanation was clean and concise, without any unnecessary details.
Siul quickly absorbed the information while taking notes in a notebook.
“Mr. Park, may I ask you one thing?”
“Of course.”
“It isn’t about this Dungeon. Something else just occurred to me.”
“Yes, yes. Ask whatever you like.”
Siul put down his notebook and continued.
“I heard the Rising Guild doesn’t have any A-Rank Hunters besides you.”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“Then does that mean the highest-ranking Dungeons the guild operates in are A-Rank?”
Park Jung-gi’s expression stiffened slightly.
He thought for a moment before answering honestly.
“For the most part, yes.”
A bitter smile followed.
“Given our guild’s current combat strength, I believe S-Rank Dungeons are beyond our capabilities. And S-Rank Gates aren’t exactly something we can easily acquire just because we want one.”
The corners of Siul’s eyes lowered ever so slightly.
Seeing that, Park Jung-gi hurriedly added,
“But!”
He leaned forward eagerly.
“If you help us, Mr. Siul, that changes everything. I’ll roll up my sleeves and secure an S-Rank Gate myself!”
It was a declaration brimming with enthusiasm and little else.
Siul could practically feel the desperate struggle of a businessman who wanted to grow his company into something larger.
“I see. We can talk about that again later.”
Siul brushed it aside with a light smile.
He had only asked on the off chance there was another possibility, but the answer was exactly what he had expected.
‘Once my rank rises to A-Rank, I’ll need to fight in S-Rank Dungeons to keep progressing through the Quests. It doesn’t look like that’ll be easy with the Rising Guild.’
When the time came, he would have to move his sphere of activity somewhere else again.
The problem was that when that happened, neither changing affiliations nor monopolizing Dungeon bosses would be as easy as it had been this time.
S-Rank Dungeons were, by nature, the stage of Korea’s strongest Hunters.
Depending on the personalities of the party members he encountered, they could become either comrades or competitors.
‘That’s going to be a headache.’
Just as his worries threatened to deepen, Siul pushed the thought aside.
Ever since learning that his life was on a deadline, he had stopped borrowing worries from the future.
He had far too little time left to waste any of it that way.
* * *
『 You have entered the A-Rank Dungeon ‘Flooded Research Lab.’ 』
〈A-Rank Gate ― Mokdong Sector 3〉
Dungeon Name: Flooded Research Lab
Appearing Monsters: Slimes
Estimated Clear Time: Approximately 6 Hours
The sensation beneath Siul’s feet changed the moment he entered the Dungeon.
SPLASH—.
Water splattered beneath his feet.
More precisely, cold water reached all the way up to his knees.
Just as the Dungeon’s name suggested, the place resembled a research facility that had been completely flooded.
Laboratories divided by glass walls, overturned experiment tables, submerged console devices.
Loose wiring and scraps of documents floated across the floor, while droplets of water fell steadily from the ceiling.
“This place looks like a ghost could pop out at any moment…. If I were alone, I’d probably be terrified.”
Siul spoke toward empty air.
“You can come out now.”
FLASH!
The space distorted, and turquoise scales fluttered into view.
“Woof!”
Zero appeared, beating its wings.
“Aren’t you a little too excited?”
Zero spun circles through the air, utterly unable to hide its excitement.
It seemed delighted to have arrived somewhere with such a dense concentration of Mana.
Siul watched Zero anxiously and gave it another warning.
“I’m letting you stay visible for now because I want to see how you handle yourself, but if an enemy attacks or things get dangerous, you turn invisible immediately. I’ve told you this plenty of times, so you understand, right?”
“Woof!”
Only after hearing Zero’s energetic answer did Siul turn his gaze forward.
The laboratory corridor was illuminated solely by fluorescent lights.
Siul heightened his vigilance and moved ahead.
“……?”
After roughly two minutes of walking, he sensed a faint presence nearby.
Realizing that it was coming from the shadowed ceiling, Siul immediately opened his Inventory.
SWISH!
Tracker’s Blade sliced through the darkness.
A dull sound rang out as the blade struck something.
Siul looked up at the ceiling and narrowed his eyes.
Between the shadows cast by the fluorescent lights, a lump of translucent gel hung suspended, impaled on the dagger.
Its soft body warped like jelly, forming a round shape with no discernible limbs.
“A Slime?”
Siul spoke while looking up at the dead Slime.
It felt almost anticlimactic.
The fight had ended in a single strike without the slightest resistance.
But at that moment, Park Jung-gi’s voice flashed through Siul’s mind.
― The monsters that appear in this Dungeon are Slimes. But these creatures are a species you should never judge by appearances.
RIP!
Without warning, the Slime’s body split in two around the dagger, like torn jelly.
The two halves dropped to the floor.
Strangely, however, both pieces began writhing and restoring their shapes.
Before long, the two lumps had become two separate Slimes.
‘So that’s what he meant.’
Siul recalled Park Jung-gi’s explanation.
― Slimes are monsters with limitless regeneration and reproduction abilities. You can never kill them by cutting them with a sword or spear. That’s why those cute-looking things are rated as B+-Rank monsters.
BOOM!
Both Slimes launched themselves into the air simultaneously.
They hurtled toward Siul like bullets, viciously aiming to punch straight through his body.
“Whoa!”
Siul reflexively swung the dagger that had returned to his hand.
Fortunately, he managed to slash both of them at once, avoiding the immediate danger of having his body pierced.
But that created another problem.
“Ah.”
The severed surfaces of the Slimes began to writhe.
RIP! RIP!
This time, two became four.
‘They’re every bit as annoying as I was told…. I regenerate too, but at least I don’t multiply.’
Encountering something even more monstrous than his cursed self left Siul feeling distinctly unpleasant.
Meanwhile, the four Slimes immediately launched another rapid assault.
They tactically spread out their formation, attacking from every direction so that Siul could not eliminate them all in a single strike.
‘They regenerate, multiply, move fast, and they’re intelligent too?’
There was a reason they were monsters found in an A-Rank Dungeon.
Siul decided he would simply endure a few lethal hits and poured out his Mana.
‘I can’t kill them with a blade. First, I’ll use Footprint Mine….’
Just as Siul began searching for a countermeasure—
A black shadow suddenly shot past him like lightning.
“Woof!”
It was Zero, its face glowing with excitement.
Zero opened its mouth wide and eagerly welcomed the approaching Slimes.
FWOOSH—!!
Flames mixed with turquoise Mana erupted explosively from Zero’s mouth.
It was the Elemental Magic ‘Fire Breath.’
BOOOOM!
The flames raced across the surface of the water and swept through everything ahead.
All four Slimes that had been charging toward them were instantly engulfed.
SSSSS…!
The soft, jellylike bodies of the Slimes melted away in an instant.
Their silhouettes bubbled like boiling water before finally losing their shapes altogether.
Not even fragments remained for them to regenerate or multiply from.
When the flames died down, nothing remained except black scorch marks.
Siul stared blankly at the scene before finally opening his mouth.
“What the hell are you?!”
Four B+-Rank monsters had been killed instantly.
Siul’s voice trembled violently with a mixture of excitement and confusion.
“When did you even learn magic like that?”
Zero tilted its head.
With an utterly innocent expression, it simply barked,
“Woof!”
There was no further explanation.
Its expression seemed to say that this was simply something it had always been able to do.
Just as naturally as a person knew how to walk and run.
“…Haha.”
Siul let out a hollow laugh.
‘I worried for nothing….’
That it was too early to bring Zero into a Dungeon.
That it would be too dangerous for a baby.
All of those concerns now seemed ridiculous.
Zero was far stronger than Siul had imagined, and apparently possessed no concept of fear whatsoever.
‘Would I lose if we fought…?’