By the time they reached the deepest section of the Dungeon, beads of sweat had formed on Do I-hyeon’s forehead.
Every time he inhaled, it felt as though dense mana were seeping into his lungs.
‘The pressure keeps getting worse….’
Do I-hyeon unconsciously hunched his shoulders.
Thump.
Walking with his eyes on the ground, Do I-hyeon accidentally bumped his nose into Siul’s back.
“S-Sorry!”
Do I-hyeon hurriedly apologized and raised his head.
Only then did he see what lay ahead.
A massive iron door stood at the end of the watchtower’s staircase.
Judging from the mana leaking through it alone, it was easy to guess that it led to the boss room.
The problem was the seven stone statues lined up in front of it as though blocking the way.
They were noticeably larger than the statues of the ordinary Gargoyles they had encountered until now.
‘I feel like we’ve just run into something incredible….’
Do I-hyeon swallowed hard.
At that moment, Siul spoke.
“Can you keep the promises you made with me?”
Do I-hyeon immediately clenched his fist and answered.
“Yes! I’ll definitely kill at least one!”
Siul shook his head.
“Not that.”
“What?”
“The three promises you made with me.”
Do I-hyeon paused, then nodded vigorously.
“Ah, those? Of course I’ll keep them!”
The three promises between them.
Safety came first.
Absolute obedience to Siul’s instructions.
And never asking about or speaking of anything seen inside the Dungeon.
“Good.”
Only after hearing his answer did Siul open his Inventory.
“Get your weapon ready. They’re coming immediately.”
No sooner had Siul finished speaking than the statues lined up before the iron door began vibrating all at once.
Cracks spread across their stone surfaces, revealing crimson eyes.
“SKREEE!!”
The roars of the seven awakening Gargoyles shook the interior of the watchtower.
Siul’s gaze swept over the space above their heads.
【Danger Level: 8】
‘They’re one level above the Gargoyles we fought before, which were Danger Level 7.’
Siul pressed his lips into a thin line.
‘And of course they show up right after my potions wear off….’
Both the Strength Enhancer and the Speed Booster had already lost their effects.
To fight Danger Level 8 monsters in his normal condition, his immortal Trait would be essential.
That was why he had gone out of his way to confirm the promises with Do I-hyeon again.
‘As long as I don’t die badly enough to be completely annihilated, I’ll be fine. If I only regenerate one body part at a time, I can brush it off as some kind of healing Trait.’
The seven Gargoyles took flight ahead of them.
“Fall back and support me!”
Siul shouted before kicking hard against the ground.
WHOOSH!
Tracker’s Blade tore through the air.
At the same time, Siul gripped his A-Rank Longsword and leaped.
SWISH! CRUNCH…!
The best defense was a relentless offense.
With that mindset, Siul continued his fierce assault.
He snapped the Gargoyles’ wings, severed their legs, and forcibly smashed their stone-hard bodies into the ground.
Behind him, Do I-hyeon continued providing what support he could by hurling his spear.
Three.
Four.
They rapidly reduced the Gargoyles’ numbers.
Then—
“SKREE!”
A Gargoyle suddenly burst from Siul’s blind spot in a surprise attack.
Siul tried to block with his longsword, but the Gargoyle’s wingbeat was faster.
His left arm was cleanly severed just below the shoulder.
“Gasp…!”
Do I-hyeon went deathly pale in shock.
The sight of Siul’s arm tumbling through the air sent him into a panic.
But what happened next was truly astonishing.
Twitch—.
Flesh and bone began growing from Siul’s shoulder once again.
Blood vessels reconnected and muscles knitted together, restoring his left arm completely in the blink of an eye.
Do I-hyeon stared at the sight in horror.
‘H-His arm…! How…?!’
Unlike the stunned Do I-hyeon, Siul remained utterly calm.
In fact, he simply swung his sword again.
“SKREEE!”
He returned the favor to the Gargoyle that had just severed his arm.
Its severed wing tumbled across the floor, and having lost its ability to fly, the Gargoyle plummeted straight into a Footprint Mine and exploded.
“…?”
A shadow streaked swiftly through the smoke from the explosion.
Siul scanned the area and realized what it was.
“I-hyeon, one got through!”
Siul shouted urgently.
A Gargoyle was stealthily approaching Do I-hyeon.
For only an instant, Do I-hyeon saw the seriousness in Siul’s expression.
This one had not been deliberately allowed through.
‘This is real…!’
His mind went blank, but Do I-hyeon summoned his courage, gripped his spear with both hands, and swung.
“AAAAH!!”
With the determination to finish it in one blow, just as Siul did, he poured all of his strength into the strike.
BOOM!
The spearhead struck the Gargoyle squarely in the torso.
A heavy recoil ran through his arms, like stone colliding with steel.
The Gargoyle was knocked sideways, but it quickly regained its balance in midair.
‘…That didn’t work?’
Do I-hyeon was deeply shaken by the result, which was completely different from what he had imagined.
It was simply a lack of experience.
He still could not properly gauge an enemy’s abilities, and at some point, he had even forgotten the fact that his opponent was a stone-bodied monster.
“Use a skill!”
Siul’s shout struck his ears.
Do I-hyeon snapped back to his senses and remembered the skills he had completely forgotten.
As an A-Rank Awakened, he had unlocked a total of five skills.
They could not be used outside Dungeons, but here, he was free to wield those extraordinary powers as much as he wished.
The problem was—
‘I’ve never properly used them before…!’
He had practiced by firing them into empty space, but in an actual battle, he had been too overwhelmed to even think of using a skill.
Do I-hyeon frantically opened his Skill Tree Window and scanned through it.
He needed time to decide which skill to use.
All while failing to notice that the Gargoyle’s claws were already flying toward his face.
BANG!
The Gargoyle’s claws were knocked away in midair.
It was as though they had collided with something invisible.
And that was exactly what had happened.
The invisible Zero had swung its tail at precisely the right moment, deflecting the Gargoyle’s attack.
In that brief opening, Do I-hyeon closed the Skill Tree Window and drew up his mana.
【Skill ‘Flame Barrage’ has been activated.】
Flames poured from Do I-hyeon’s palm like a waterfall.
Compressed fire erupted continuously, engulfing the Gargoyle’s entire body.
“SKREEE!”
The Gargoyle’s stone body glowed red-hot before crumbling into blackened stone dust.
“Whoa!”
Do I-hyeon himself recoiled in surprise.
‘Did I kill it?’
He had hunting experience.
However, this was his first time defeating an opponent as powerful as a B+-Rank Gargoyle.
“You kept your promise.”
Siul smiled from a short distance away.
Then he turned his attention toward the final Gargoyle remaining before him.
“Above you.”
At the exact moment Siul gave the warning, Tracker’s Blade plunged vertically from the air and pierced straight through the Gargoyle’s skull.
* * *
Once the battle ended, silence returned to the depths of the watchtower.
For a long while, Do I-hyeon stared blankly at his own palm.
Heat still lingered at his fingertips.
The sensation of flames pouring from his palm along with his mana refused to fade.
‘So this is how powerful a skill can be….’
The realization struck him belatedly.
The strength left Do I-hyeon’s legs, and he sank to the floor.
Meanwhile, Siul was surveying the surroundings.
He checked whether every trace of the Gargoyles had disappeared and whether he could sense any additional presences.
Only after confirming everything did he approach Do I-hyeon.
“It doesn’t seem like there are any threatening monsters nearby. We should be fine setting up the barrier here.”
After saying that, Siul knelt and pressed his palm against the floor.
A vibration spread outward, and a translucent curtain rose at a radius of fifty meters.
It enclosed the area behind them, with the iron boss-room door serving as the boundary.
“You can relax and rest now.”
“Thank you. I survived because of you, Hunter Siul….”
Siul stared at Do I-hyeon’s face for a moment before saying something.
“You did well.”
“……?”
“In the fight. That Gargoyle was stronger than the ordinary ones, but you handled it calmly.”
The corners of Do I-hyeon’s mouth rose awkwardly.
He looked happy, yet still unable to quite believe what had happened.
Then his gaze suddenly settled on Siul’s left arm.
A shocking scene from the battle replayed vividly in his mind.
Blood spraying as the arm was severed.
Then the impossible sight of it growing back as though nothing had happened.
“What exactly was that earlier….”
Just as the words were about to escape, the promise not to ask anything flashed through his mind like lightning.
“Ah, never mind!”
Do I-hyeon clamped both hands over his mouth.
Siul tilted his head before organizing his equipment and standing.
“I’ll head into the boss room now.”
“Already? You should rest a little first.”
“If I want to finish mining the Mana Stones afterward, I need to hurry.”
Do I-hyeon found it strange that Siul so openly stated his objective.
Ordinarily, accompanying Hunters did not openly admit that they intended to mine Mana Stones.
Since the primary purpose of these Dungeons was training prospects, mining Mana Stones was not mandatory.
And because it was not mandatory, anyone who secretly mined them could take the Mana Stones without paying a fee.
‘I only trained the prospect and came back out.’
All they had to do was pretend that was what happened.
That was why most accompanying Hunters assigned Do I-hyeon some individual training, then went off behind his back to mine Mana Stones for themselves.
“Nine to one.”
“……What?”
Siul suddenly raised one finger toward Do I-hyeon.
“I’m going to keep the Mana Stones we mine here a secret. If you cooperate, I’ll give you ten percent.”
Do I-hyeon’s eyes widened.
It was the first time in his life anyone had made him such an offer.
“Because of concerns about compromising the purpose of rookie-training Dungeons, the Mana Stone mining fee is five times higher than in ordinary Dungeons. The system is practically designed so that whoever does the mining loses out.”
Siul looked around the area as he continued.
Mana Stones were scattered everywhere, so plentiful that they hardly even needed to mine them and could simply pick them up.
“But wouldn’t it be a waste to leave all these valuable things behind?”
“That’s true, but… you could just take them without telling me….”
“I told you. This is a partnership.”
Siul crossed his arms and continued with an indifferent expression.
“Trust is everything in a partnership. If you intend to report this, I’ll give up on mining them. If you’re willing to overlook it, I’ll give you ten percent in return.”
Siul’s actions would depend entirely on Do I-hyeon’s choice.
That gave Do I-hyeon an unfamiliar feeling.
‘I… get to decide?’
Until now, Do I-hyeon had always simply done whatever his instructors told him.
He had grown up in a poor household and had developed the habit of never once complaining to his sponsors or instructors.
But now, Siul was asking Do I-hyeon for his opinion while treating him as an equal.
“You really intend to give me that money?”
“Ah, forget it. I wasn’t thinking.”
Siul slapped his palm against his own forehead and corrected himself.
“You’ve never mined Mana Stones before, right? I’ll teach you, so we can mine them together. In that case, we’ll split the profits fifty-fifty.”
“What?!”
Mana Stones from an A-Rank Dungeon were worth an enormous amount on the market.
If Do I-hyeon received fifty percent of the profits, he would earn several years’ worth of the allowance his parents gave him.
“C-Can I really take that much?!”
When Siul nodded, Do I-hyeon sprang to his feet and immediately agreed.
“Good. I’ll teach you how to mine them before I go. While I’m killing the boss, try mining the Mana Stones inside the barrier.”
“Yes! I’ll work hard!”
Do I-hyeon opened his Inventory with an excited expression.
He practically bounced in place as he wondered what equipment would be best for his first mining attempt.
Siul watched the excited Do I-hyeon and hid a smile.
‘I hope this helps him, even if only a little.’
In truth, while signing the contract at the Great Tiger Guild’s Rookie Training Department, Siul had inadvertently seen Do I-hyeon’s personal information.
A father suffering from a chronic illness.
A mother who supported the household alone.
The unfortunate circumstances of Do I-hyeon’s family had left a deep impression on Siul.
If Do I-hyeon took half the profits from the Mana Stones he mined today, it should ease their burden for a while.
‘Become a great Hunter someday and be someone your parents can rely on.’