“SKREEE!!”
The flock of Gargoyles spread their wings at once and charged.
Stone dust scattered through the air, and the thunder of beating wings battered their ears.
“Stay back. You’re only going to fight the monsters that slip past my combat range, I-hyeon. Remember that.”
“Yes! Understood!”
After giving his instructions, Siul shot forward.
【Skill ‘Dungeon Dash’ has been activated.】
BOOM!
With a deafening explosion that seemed to shatter the floor, Siul’s body accelerated.
The Speed Booster and Strength Enhancer were both active at the same time.
His movements were far too swift and sharp to seem human.
SCREEECH!
By the time a Gargoyle’s claws scraped across the wall, Siul had already passed beside it.
His A-Rank Longsword traced an arc through the air and severed the Gargoyle’s neck.
Then came a second.
A third.
The Gargoyles were torn apart in midair and crashed to the ground without even managing a proper counterattack.
“Wow….”
Watching from behind, Do I-hyeon could only stare in amazement.
He finally understood why Siul had recently been called a monstrous Hunter within the industry.
Seeing his reaction, Siul chuckled.
‘There’s nothing to be impressed by. This is just the potions doing their job. I’m not the one with the truly monstrous body. You are, aren’t you?’
Just then, one of the Gargoyles changed direction from Siul’s blind spot.
Its target was not Siul, but Do I-hyeon standing behind him.
“I-hyeon!”
By the time Siul shouted, the Gargoyle was already right in front of Do I-hyeon.
Gleaming claws.
A charge as fast as a violent gust of wind.
An ordinary Hunter would have been a heartbeat away from suffering a fatal wound.
“Agh!”
But Do I-hyeon instinctively threw himself aside.
His posture was awkward, but he still managed to evade the Gargoyle’s claws by the narrowest margin.
“Hah…!”
Barely escaping danger, Do I-hyeon rolled across the ground before scrambling back to his feet.
Watching him, Siul smiled.
‘He really is an A-Rank Awakened. Even with that ridiculous posture, he can dodge something moving at that speed.’
Do I-hyeon himself had no idea.
‘That was insane… It was so fast…!’
Breathing heavily, Do I-hyeon looked around with a dazed expression.
‘Are even the ordinary monsters in an A-Rank Dungeon this strong…?’
As the immediate tension eased, his mind went blank for an instant.
Siul’s sharp voice cut through it.
“Get your head in the game!”
Do I-hyeon belatedly looked to the side.
Another Gargoyle was charging at him.
This time, he noticed too late.
There was no time to dodge.
“Ugh!”
Do I-hyeon curled up and covered his head with both arms.
It was the instinctive defensive posture of a frightened person.
But at that very moment—
FWOOSH—!
A fierce teal flame erupted in midair.
With a blast of scorching heat, the Gargoyle’s body burned away and vanished.
“Huh?”
Startled, Do I-hyeon raised his head.
There was nothing in front of him.
‘What was that? I definitely saw fire just now….’
Do I-hyeon stared around the empty space in bewilderment.
“Good job, my boy.”
Siul’s praise would later be followed by a dog treat.
That was because the one who had just defeated the Gargoyle with fire magic was Zero.
“Woof!”
In fact, Zero had remained beside Do I-hyeon ever since they entered the Dungeon.
Invisible, it had followed him like a shadow.
— Your job today is to protect Mr. Do I-hyeon.
Following Siul’s instructions, Zero had been faithfully carrying out its duty of protecting the promising rookie.
‘Did Hunter Siul protect me? I couldn’t see anything at all….’
A mixture of confusion and awe filled Do I-hyeon’s gaze as he looked toward Siul.
At the same time, Siul decided to finish the battle.
【Skill ‘Footprint Mine’ has been activated.】
The explosive devices he had planted in the ground with mana.
Since Gargoyles could fly, Footprint Mine might have seemed useless against them.
Siul thought otherwise.
‘I just have to slam them into the ground.’
He shot forward like an arrow, grabbed a Gargoyle by the back of its neck, and hurled it down with all his strength.
BANG! BANG—! KABOOM—!!
The entire flock of Gargoyles died in the minefield.
“Whew.”
After steadying his breathing, Siul turned toward Do I-hyeon.
“I deliberately let one through for you, but I guess you’re still scared?”
Only then did Do I-hyeon realize that Siul had intentionally given him a chance to fight.
“I’m sorry! I should’ve fought more aggressively…!”
Siul walked over and held out his hand.
When Do I-hyeon took it, Siul hauled him upright with his powerful grip and brushed the dust from his backside.
“Do you know why the industry values a Hunter’s experience more than their Awakening Rank? The qualifications for an accompanying Hunter are based on experience too.”
“Huh? Ah, no. I’m not really sure.”
“Because of situations like what just happened.”
Siul looked around the area, where only the remains of the Gargoyles were left.
“The mindset to attack instead of freezing in fear when you face a monster. The practical instincts to know how to attack and how to dodge efficiently. Those things are extremely important.”
Do I-hyeon listened attentively, his eyes shining.
“I still have a long way to go as a Hunter myself. But… At the very least, I’m prepared to fight. I hope you can develop that same mindset, I-hyeon.”
Siul lightly tapped Do I-hyeon on the chest and started walking again.
“Follow me. We haven’t reached a rest area yet. I’m not going to indulge any whining.”
There were many convictions reflected in Siul’s back as he strode forward without hesitation.
The courage not to fear monsters.
The spirit to never shy away from battle.
And above all, an attitude that made it seem as though he lived with death constantly at his side.
‘He’s seriously amazing…!’
A shiver ran through Do I-hyeon’s entire body, one that no armor could have stopped.
At the same time, he became convinced that this was the kind of true mentor who possessed exactly what he wanted to learn.
“Hunter Siul! Wait for me!”
Do I-hyeon broke into a bright smile and ran after Siul.
Before he knew it, following in Siul’s footsteps had become something the boy genuinely enjoyed.
* * *
“This is boring.”
The government-run Special Hunter Headquarters.
Inside a windowless office, beneath dim lighting, only the dry rustle of documents being turned echoed through the room.
Baek Ga-hyeon stopped scrolling through her tablet and pressed a hand to her forehead.
“We’re still investigating… but we haven’t really found anything useful.”
Her voice carried both frustration and exhaustion.
“Every statement is identical, and every important part is blank. Everything after the Black Gate is vague….”
Her gaze shifted across the room.
Kang Ho-cheol was sitting against a desk with his arms loosely crossed as he looked through the documents.
“There’s nothing we can do about that. He’s in a state where he physically can’t talk about information related to the Black Gate.”
Kang Ho-cheol set down the documents and continued.
“The person who’s most frustrated right now probably isn’t us. It’s Mr. Kim Siul.”
Baek Ga-hyeon knew that as well, but her body itself seemed to rebel against being stuck on an assignment that made no progress.
“I take back what I said about this sounding like an interesting assignment. Interesting, my foot. It feels like we’re endlessly playing a psychological game that can’t even be won.”
Baek Ga-hyeon stared blankly at the ceiling.
Then an old memory suddenly came to mind.
“If Hunter David hadn’t left behind that final message ten years ago, would we be even more lost right now?”
Kang Ho-cheol understood what she meant and chuckled.
“Probably.”
It was a famous story.
Ten years earlier, humanity had attempted its first raid on an SSS-Rank Dungeon.
Only one Hunter returned alive.
David.
He never spoke a word about anything he had seen inside the Dungeon.
He answered every interview and investigation with silence.
Then, just before his death, he left the world with a single sentence.
〈The curse magic received inside an SSS-Rank Dungeon places a restriction on disclosing information. Violating it results in death.〉
That final message had resolved a mystery people had wondered about for years.
Why did everyone who entered an SSS-Rank Dungeon and returned remain silent?
Why could they remember what had happened yet remain unable to explain it?
“Thanks to that message, we figured out Mr. Kim Siul’s condition pretty quickly.”
Kang Ho-cheol nodded.
“The Black Gate Mr. Kim Siul was caught in must have been an SSS-Rank Dungeon.”
“Overseas research institutes reached the same conclusion after analyzing the mana concentration readings.”
A brief silence followed.
Then Baek Ga-hyeon suddenly raised a question.
“But…”
“Hmm?”
“What exactly happened to Mr. Kim Siul in there that’s making him rush so much?”
Kang Ho-cheol narrowed his eyes.
“Rush?”
“His Dungeon Raids.”
Baek Ga-hyeon tapped one of the documents.
It contained records of Siul’s recent Dungeon Raid achievements.
“This is almost obsessive. He’s clearing at least one Dungeon every week, and he keeps raising the difficulty.”
It strongly gave the impression that he was raiding Dungeons in a hurry, as though he were being chased by time.
Kang Ho-cheol mulled over her words before his thoughts shifted in another direction.
“I don’t know. I’m more curious about what comes after that.”
Baek Ga-hyeon blinked.
“What do you mean?”
“If he keeps raising the difficulty of the Dungeons he enters, then looked at another way, doesn’t that mean he’s getting stronger at exactly that pace?”
Baek Ga-hyeon flinched and looked down at the records again.
She could not deny it.
Siul’s growth curve was extremely abnormal.
Rather than simply praising his raid ability, the natural response should have been to question how he managed to break his own records every single time.
“He’s growing at an astonishing rate with each passing day.”
The corner of Kang Ho-cheol’s mouth rose.
“It keeps making me want him.”
Baek Ga-hyeon grimaced in disgust.
“Don’t tell me you still want to recruit Mr. Kim Siul as a Special Hunter?”
Kang Ho-cheol answered immediately.
“No.”
Baek Ga-hyeon sighed in relief.
For a moment, she had worried that her senior’s hobby of nurturing juniors had flared up again.
But as the saying went, with Korean, you had to listen to the end.
“There’s no need to recruit him.”
“…What?”
Kang Ho-cheol predicted the future with complete confidence.
“He’ll come to us on his own. You know as well as I do that he has no other choice if he wants to achieve his goal.”
The goal Siul had revealed to the two of them.
His determination to clear an SSS-Rank Dungeon flashed through her mind.
“…….”
Baek Ga-hyeon said nothing.
Because Kang Ho-cheol was right.
* * *
“This is the midpoint of the Dungeon.”
Siul announced it while looking around.
It was a spacious area where corridors extended in every direction and stairways leading to the upper and lower floors intersected.
It was the perfect location for securing both combat routes and escape paths.
“We’ll set up the barrier here.”
Apparently familiar with the procedure, Do I-hyeon recited what would happen next.
“I wait inside the barrier while you go to the boss room, right, Hunter Siul?”
He said it casually, but there was a subtle lack of energy in his voice.
Do I-hyeon was familiar with this pattern.
Every accompanying Hunter he had worked with until now had only brought him as far as the midpoint.
The inner area was connected to the boss room, so the danger level increased from there.
‘I wish I could go just a little farther in….’
Do I-hyeon had always been disappointed.
Even if he could not enter the boss room, he wanted to at least reach the area just before it, where he could feel the Dungeon boss’s mana.
“Do you want to go farther?”
Do I-hyeon flinched at Siul’s sudden question.
“What? Ah, no! I’ve already gained plenty of experience, and it’s only right that I wait here!”
He denied it because he did not want to act spoiled.
He had already been given a valuable opportunity, so asking for more would be rude.
But Siul carefully studied Do I-hyeon’s expression before asking a question.
“How many Gargoyles did you kill today?”
“…What?”
Do I-hyeon counted for a moment, then his face reddened.
“Half of one…? Although this isn’t fried chicken, so saying half sounds a little strange….”
Siul remained silent.
“I’m sorry. Zero….”
Do I-hyeon lowered his head in embarrassment.
Only then did Siul laugh.
“Then we can’t stop here.”
“…?”
“If you came out here for Dungeon Raid training and go home without killing even one monster, can you really call that training?”
Do I-hyeon looked flustered, yet his face brightened with excitement.
“But….”
“The only place prospects are legally prohibited from entering is the boss room.”
Siul recited the contents of the precautions booklet he had received from Do I-hyeon’s supervisor.
“Going all the way to the area in front of the boss room isn’t recommended, but it isn’t forbidden either.”
Do I-hyeon’s eyes widened.
“You’re really going to take me with you?”
Siul shrugged and smiled.
“But if we go farther in and you still can’t kill a single Gargoyle, I’m going to punish you.”
Do I-hyeon’s face lit up.
He clenched his fist and shouted.
“Thank you!! I’ll seriously work hard this time!!”