Shinyul literally flew over using his telekinesis.
As Huiyeong's swaying body slowly tipped forward, people nearby gasped and instinctively reached out to catch him.
Shinyul arrived before any of them could.
Before Huiyeong's slender body even had the chance to collapse, Shinyul caught him securely in his arms.
At the very same moment, Seungjun—who had been standing there in a daze—was suddenly lifted into the air.
Then—
Bang!
He was slammed violently into the ground.
"Seungjun!"
People screamed from every direction.
Shinyul's golden eyes gleamed coldly as he continued smashing Seungjun into the ground.
Seungjun hastily erected a barrier around himself, but it was already too late.
He had already taken the first hit.
His barrier shattered again and again under the relentless assault, and the backlash from each collapse left his body a bloody wreck.
After slamming him into the ground several more times, Shinyul finally hurled Seungjun far into the distance.
He then turned his icy gaze toward the Center Guide who had entered together with Haram and now stood among the terrified cluster of Guides.
"Treat him."
The Guide, frozen by the command delivered in a voice colder than ice, couldn't even answer before scrambling toward Seungjun.
Meanwhile, Shinyul carefully examined Huiyeong.
His right hand gently brushed over Huiyeong's swollen wrist.
Over the tattered clothes he had personally dressed him in.
Over the blood and monster fluids staining his body.
After silently checking his condition, Shinyul immediately grabbed a first-aid kit and carried Huiyeong straight into their pair tent.
The assault team arrived only afterward.
Watching the terrifying expression on Shinyul's face as he strode past carrying Huiyeong, every one of them went pale.
The Guides...
Had been injured.
The very people who were supposed to be safest, even during combat with monsters, had been attacked inside base camp.
And this had happened despite being protected by Seungjun, one of the Center's most highly regarded defensive Espers.
They should have investigated what happened first.
Instead, the most important Esper had already been beaten into a bloody pulp.
Still...
Shinyul was the team leader.
Inside a dungeon, the situation was treated much like wartime.
Absolute obedience to one's superior came first.
If Team Leader Han Shinyul chose to punish someone personally, no one had the authority to interfere.
The team decided to treat Haram first.
Fortunately, the creature that had attacked him was only a Kerko.
And not just any Kerko—
A juvenile.
One of the weakest individuals.
His life wasn't in danger.
Using the emergency medical supplies they had brought, they treated his injuries.
The bite on his arm was deep, and the bleeding wouldn't stop.
But the fact that his arm hadn't been torn off entirely was nothing short of miraculous.
Had it been an adult Kerko...
Even such a weak species could easily have killed someone with ordinary human physical abilities like Haram.
Fortunately, everyone knew Kerko weren't venomous.
After stopping the bleeding and tightly wrapping the wound with bandages, Haram rested quietly amid the heavy silence hanging over the camp.
Not long afterward...
Shinyul called everyone together.
The team assembled inside the central tent.
"Explain."
At Shinyul's low voice, Haram swallowed hard.
He slowly recalled what had happened.
He had been completely focused on teaching.
Huiyeong had done nothing but sigh distractedly.
Neither of them noticed the monster approaching.
To be honest...
Even if they hadn't been distracted...
Neither of them would have imagined a monster infiltrating base camp.
Han Shinyul had practically exterminated every monster anywhere near the camp.
And every previous expedition into Dungeon 1178 had ended without Seungjun allowing even a single monster to breach the perimeter.
Those facts had made everyone lower their guard.
They had forgotten the most basic rule of surviving inside a dungeon.
Never let your guard down.
Among the two sitting across from each other at the small table...
Haram spotted the Kerko first.
The instant he saw it lunging toward them, he threw himself between the monster and Huiyeong.
There wasn't even enough time to shout Huiyeong's name.
If he hadn't reacted immediately...
The monster would have bitten straight through Huiyeong's neck.
Even looking at the wound on his own left arm now...
Haram didn't regret that decision.
What shocked him afterward...
Was Huiyeong.
Without a moment's hesitation...
Huiyeong drove a knife into the back of the Kerko's neck while it still had Haram's forearm clamped tightly in its jaws.
Its hide was too tough.
The blade failed to penetrate properly.
So Huiyeong immediately changed targets.
The Kerko had seven grotesquely blinking eyes.
He plunged the knife directly into the largest eye in the center.
The long, sharp blade sank deep into the monster's eyeball, spraying disgusting dark-green blood everywhere.
Wracked with pain, the Kerko finally released Haram's arm.
Huiyeong immediately continued attacking.
Again and again.
He relentlessly stabbed at the vulnerable eye.
There wasn't the slightest hesitation.
Not even a flicker.
Chunks of flesh flew.
Blood splattered everywhere.
Yet Huiyeong moved like someone completely accustomed to it.
His only concern was killing the creature trapped beneath his hands.
Even as the Kerko clawed and fought back, scratching and injuring him...
Huiyeong never faltered.
He kept driving the knife in until the monster stopped breathing.
It was horrifying.
His eyes blazed with madness.
With killing intent.
The way he handled the knife looked like that of an experienced professional.
A normal civilian seeing a monster for the first time—
No.
Even an Esper encountering one for the first time—
Would hesitate.
Would freeze.
No matter what it was...
Taking a life wasn't easy.
Yet Huiyeong showed none of that.
He stabbed relentlessly.
When the badly wounded Kerko finally collapsed from exhaustion...
Huiyeong calmly targeted its vital organs one after another.
Its abdomen.
Its heart.
The back of its neck.
Its hide was tough enough that the blade wouldn't penetrate immediately.
So he stabbed again.
And again.
Even after the monster was unquestionably dead...
He continued.
As though confirming the kill.
He repeatedly tore through the hide and ripped into its organs.
The entire sequence...
Had lasted only a few minutes.
After listening to Haram's explanation, everyone found themselves puzzled by something else.
How had a juvenile Kerko managed to get through Seungjun's supposedly impenetrable defensive barrier?
Whenever an assault team cleared the area around base camp, the team's Searcher always performed one final sweep.
Only after confirming absolutely everything was safe did they return.
Which made today's incident even harder to understand.
But the most important issue remained—
A Guide had killed the monster.
Guides were meant to be protected until the very end.
With proper Guiding, an Esper could even regenerate lost limbs.
An Esper supported by Guiding was practically an endless-energy machine.
Protecting the Guide was therefore always the highest priority.
Yet today...
A Guide had fought a monster.
Not just any Guide—
A Guide entering a dungeon for the very first time.
Everyone slowly turned toward Seungjun.
Their eyes grew cold.
Then what the hell were you doing?
"Well..."
The only Searcher on the team, Byeongho, spoke almost defensively.
"As you can see... creatures this weak sometimes can't be detected by a Searcher's abilities."
That much was true.
Searchers detected the unique energy emitted by monsters.
A juvenile Kerko possessed extremely weak energy.
Detecting something that faint was especially difficult.
But Shinyul only responded with a cold sneer.
"So every other time we entered Dungeon 1178..."
"When juvenile Kerkos were around..."
"You all wandered the dungeon killing them one by one without relying on Searchers?"
"..."
Of course not.
That was impossible.
The grass inside Dungeon 1178 was absurdly tall.
If juvenile Kerkos wanted to hide, finding them manually would have taken forever.
Byeongho had always searched with absolute concentration.
Detection was difficult.
Not impossible.
This time...
He hadn't.
He'd simply done a quick sweep.
Found nothing.
Reported the area clear.
After all...
If there wasn't anything powerful enough for him to detect...
There was no way Seungjun's barrier could possibly be breached.
Besides...
They had unconsciously relied on the existence of an S-rank.
They weren't gods.
Yet everyone had simply assumed the S-rank had exterminated every monster nearby.
Shinyul's face hardened.
Why was it always the same?
Everything about it disgusted him.
What exactly did people think S-ranks were?
Even inside a dungeon, where their own lives were at stake...
There were always one or two people who became lazy and careless.
Whether Shinyul had a Guide or not...
They didn't care.
The S-rank will handle it somehow.
That single complacent thought had repeatedly placed either their own lives...
Or Shinyul's...
On the line.
Time after time, Shinyul had pushed his powers to the brink of Berserk just to clean up after everyone else's negligence.
Until now...
He hadn't cared.
If people got themselves killed through their own carelessness...
That was their responsibility.
If his own life ended because he lacked Guiding...
That was simply the inevitable fate of an Esper living without a Guide.
He had never been particularly attached to life.
But now...
Everything was different.
The thought that Huiyeong had been endangered because of someone else's carelessness made rage surge all the way to the top of his head.
For now...
There was no way he was leaving Huiyeong somewhere this unsafe.
"The Guides have been injured."
"We're returning."
The sudden announcement turned every team member deathly pale.
Just three hours earlier, Shinyul had already killed roughly another five hundred monsters.
Even experienced members like Jeong Min, who had worked alongside S-ranks before, found that pace unbelievable.
Most of the time hadn't even been spent fighting.
It had been wasted because everyone else was busy counting corpses.
Shinyul's declaration was entirely realistic.
Which also meant...
They wouldn't even get to rest before moving again.
"As for..."
He glanced coldly toward Seungjun's unconscious body.
"...that."
"We'll settle it after we leave."
Then he continued,
"The rest of you stay here and guard base camp."
"That idiot isn't useful anymore."
The moment those words left his mouth, Shinyul grabbed Searcher Byeongho by the collar.
The two vanished instantly.
Two hours later...
The dungeon exit opened.
Total completion time—
Seven hours and forty-three minutes.
A new record.
***
Huiyeong's eyes snapped open.
Looking around, he found only an empty hospital bed nearby.
An IV drip was connected to his hand.
A strange sense of déjà vu washed over him.
He sat up unsteadily.
His head felt heavy.
Dizzy.
As he rubbed his eyes, he noticed the familiar hospital name printed on his patient gown.
"...Ah."
"Back here again."
Looking around the room, Huiyeong clicked his tongue after noticing the casts on his right hand and right leg.
Well...
Considering I fought a monster...
Just needing casts isn't so bad.
His thoughts drifted to the last thing he remembered.
Shinyul racing toward him.
Like an idiot...
He'd trusted Shinyul.
And that idiot...
Had actually saved him.
That alone made him feel strangely satisfied.
But...
Why was he already outside the dungeon?
He distinctly remembered hearing it usually took around a week to clear.
After thinking about it for a while...
He shrugged.
Whatever.
I'm alive.
That's enough.
He flopped back onto the bed.
Every muscle in his body ached.
Probably because he'd used muscles he'd never used before while killing that monster.
Honestly...
With how pathetic this body was...
He wouldn't have been surprised if he'd stayed unconscious for an entire week.
While mentally cursing the useless body of this unfamiliar young man as usual...
Huiyeong looked toward the hospital room door as it slowly opened.
It's probably that brat Han Shinyul again.
The thought alone made him smile.
The bastard had actually done something worth praising for once.
Grunting, Huiyeong forced himself upright.
"Huiyeong! You're awake!"
"I was getting worried because you just wouldn't wake up."
"...Huh?"
"It's you, teach."
"Your arm?"
"Thanks to you, it's fine."
"Thank you."
Seeing Haram dressed in the same hospital gown, Huiyeong gave an awkward nod.
"Yeah, yeah."
"You've got good manners."
Even while praising him, his eyes remained fixed beyond Haram's shoulder.
There's no way that guy wouldn't come.
Noticing where Huiyeong was looking, Haram glanced behind himself before turning back.
"What is it?"
"Is something there?"
"Ah..."
"No."
"I was just wondering when the doctor would show up."
"Oh."
"They just finished their rounds not long ago."
"Are you feeling uncomfortable anywhere?"
Despite Haram's gentle concern, Huiyeong simply kept staring at the half-open door.
He's not coming?
What's with him?
That clingy bastard has something else to do?
After thinking about Shinyul for a while, Huiyeong shook his head.
Who cares?
Life's easier without that annoying bastard hanging around.
Haram interpreted the headshake as meaning he wasn't uncomfortable.
"That's good."
He smiled warmly.
"Oh, Huiyeong."
"Someone from the Center will be here soon."
"They're coming to interview you as a witness regarding everything that happened."
"And..."
"There'll also be compensation."
"They're acknowledging that you were forced into the dungeon despite your physical condition."
"It'll be processed as an occupational injury."
Huiyeong's face immediately brightened.
"Really?"
"So I don't have to go into dungeons anymore?"
"Uh..."
"Probably not for a while."
Oh.
Thank God.
For once in his life, Huiyeong sincerely prayed to the god he only ever remembered when he needed something.
Finally.
He could rest.
No matter how strong Shinyul was...
Even though he'd finally come to trust that idiot to protect him...
There was no way he wanted to keep dragging this pathetic body into battles against monsters like that.
Sure...
He'd killed one.
With broken arms and legs.
Seeing Huiyeong smile so brightly, Haram walked over to his own bed and rummaged through his belongings.
He pulled out the thick textbook he'd brought into the dungeon.
Then smiled.
There was something almost manic shining in his eyes.
"So..."
"While you're hospitalized..."
"I thought we'd continue the lessons."
"This time I realized something with absolute certainty."
"Huiyeong..."
"You desperately need more knowledge."
"...What?"
"Fuck."
God...
Was dead.
Nietzsche keeps winning.