— Measuring the rank of a new monster.
At the same moment the system message appeared, Han Jaeyeong quickly stepped back. They nearly let a curse slip out. For something like this to happen so suddenly— Worse, a monster not even registered in the system was appearing out of nowhere.
Of course, Han Jaeyeong was an S-rank Hunter. They had both the confidence and the ability to handle most unexpected situations alone. That was why they had sent Shin Jieum and the rest of the guild members ahead to clear the dungeon. But right now, Jeong Daon was behind them.
If they were alone, they might have felt more at ease. Han Jaeyeong shouted toward Jeong Daon, “Fall back!” They weren’t unaware that Jeong Daon handled magic suspiciously well, or that she had hidden depth. But facing a monster whose traits were completely unknown was a different matter.
And the dungeon difficulty is being recalculated, on top of that.
When a system message like this appeared, it meant the monster in front of them was strong enough to raise the dungeon’s overall difficulty.
If it was A-rank or higher—
I shouldn’t have sent Shin Jieum ahead.
They had assumed that, at worst, they would run into a PvP situation. They never imagined a monster of such a high rank would be hiding here. On top of that, this passageway was far too narrow to fight a monster properly; there was barely any room to maneuver. But charging blindly into the cave where the monster was seated wasn’t an option either. Most monsters were extremely sensitive about their territory. Of course, regretting it now was pointless.
Han Jaeyeong carefully examined the monster in front of them.
This is a monster?
Without the system message, they would have thought it was just a person. In fact, it wasn’t all that different in shape from the mummy-like Hunter they had seen in the village earlier. This “monster”, too, had thin arms and legs, and the part that could be called a face looked twisted in agony.
Black eyes with no whites rolled slowly, fixing their gaze on Han Jaeyeong. And in that moment, instinct kicked in.
This was dangerous.
“Hunter Jeong Daon, get out of here. Now.
Immediately!
”
As they shouted, Han Jaeyeong raised their arm.
Kiiiiing! Clack, clack, clack!
Countless throwing blades shot out at once from their sleeve.
The blades embedded themselves all over the monster’s body as it tried to rise, but the monster didn’t even flinch.
Of course, Han Jaeyeong hadn’t expected this attack to take it down. They were buying time, testing the toughness of the monster’s outer layer and its reaction speed.
For an A-rank monster, its hide isn’t very tough.
Judging by how the blades pierced it, it wasn’t much different from slightly reinforced human skin. Even its reaction speed was slow. It hadn’t dodged a single blade, even though they were clearly visible.
No… did it not even try to dodge?
Any living creature should instinctively avoid threats flying toward it, but this monster showed no such physiological fear.
After being struck by countless blades in an instant, the monster began to move sluggishly. Despite the blades embedded all over its body, it showed no sign of caring.
Hollow black eyes. Heavy, awkward movements. No matter how one looked at it, it moved like a human with limbs, yet something felt fundamentally off.
Han Jaeyeong frowned. “This thing… what is it…?”
“It looks like a corpse being forced to move.”
At that voice, Han Jaeyeong snapped their head around. “Why are you still here instead of getting out?”
“Huh? Oh, you were serious about that?”
Jeong Daon, whom Han Jaeyeong had assumed had already retreated down the passage the moment the blades were thrown, was standing calmly behind them. At her feet, Leo was grooming himself, licking his paws as if applying medicine.
Speechless at the sight, Han Jaeyeong stared at her as Jeong Daon spoke. “I thought you brought me all the way here on purpose to test my limits.”
“What are you—”
“More importantly, be careful.” She pointed ahead of Han Jaeyeong. “It’s coming.”
She was right. In an instant, the flow of air changed. It took a beat for them to realize the reason. The monster was sucking in air through its mouth. And then—
Boom!
The monster fired a shockwave from its mouth.
"Ugh!"
Even in their moment of shock, Han Jaeyeong hurriedly wrapped an arm around Jeong Daon and rolled across the ground.
Bang!
Rumble!
The shockwave skimmed past their heads and slammed into the well wall with a deafening crash. Having taken the hit head-on, the wall shed clumps of dirt as the entire passage shook violently. The corridor they had just come through looked as though it might collapse completely
“At this rate, the well is going to cave in!”
If their luck ran out, they would be buried alive here, along with that monster.
“What were you thinking, not running away—!”
“That’s what I’m saying.” Jeong Daon stretched one arm upward. “What were you going to do if I’d actually left?”
Along with that oddly light scolding, completely out of place for the situation, the eyes of the snake coiled around Jeong Daon’s arm flashed. And then—
Bang!
A shockwave far more powerful than the one the monster had just released shot straight into the ceiling.
Han Jaeyeong’s vision flickered. For a moment, they couldn’t process what had just happened. They stared blankly upward, at what had been the well’s ceiling just seconds ago, and blinked. “H-huh…?”
Blue sky was visible now. The shockwave Jeong Daon had fired using her bracelet had completely blown away the ceiling of the passage. And thanks to the perfect angle, the opposite side, where the monster had been, was now entirely buried under a mound of earth. Fresh air rushed in all at once, replacing the damp, stagnant air.
True, the passage had been on the verge of collapse anyway, but still, who in their right mind thinks to just blow the ceiling off entirely?
That’s not just reckless; that’s insane!
They had joked before that she was like a walking bomb, but at this point she really was one. In all of Han Jaeyeong’s long career as a seasoned veteran, they had never encountered a Hunter this impossible to predict.
“What were you thinking, doing something like that?! We could’ve ended up buried alive ourselves!”
“The cave would’ve collapsed anyway. You saw it, right? That thing firing shockwaves from its mouth.”
“Even so, that was way too reckless!”
“Ah, it’s fine. I calculated it all. The soil was softer than I expected. Besides, fighting in a place with no room to escape is way too disadvantageous.”
While Han Jaeyeong stood there, utterly dumbfounded, Jeong Daon lightly patted their shoulder, as if soothing a rookie Hunter.
Who was comforting whom here?!
“Don’t freeze up like that. Unfortunately for me, you didn’t even get a chance to shine yet, but it’s not over. Look at that.”
Thud! Thud!
The mound of earth that had completely buried the monster began to heave several times.
Bang!
The buried monster burst upward, then vanished straight through the ruptured ceiling of the well.
It had reached the surface.
“Ah, seriously.”
With a click of their tongue, Han Jaeyeong wrapped one arm around Jeong Daon and kicked off the ground, leaping upward. If they stayed underground like this and got attacked from above, they’d be done for.
“Ow.”
As soon as they reached the surface, Han Jaeyeong released the arm holding Jeong Daon. As a result, Jeong Daon, who could reasonably be described as having been tossed onto the ground, let out a pained sound, but that wasn’t the issue right now.
“What kind of mana is that…?”
The monster stood aboveground. Centered on it, the mana in the surrounding area was being violently drawn in, spiraling inward. The suction was terrifyingly strong. There was even pressure strong enough to feel as though it might tear away the mana Han Jaeyeong held within their own body.
Don’t tell me that Hunter earlier fell victim to this thing too?
If they had been caught by a monster that devoured mana like this, it made sense they’d ended up looking like a mummy. Without mana control on Han Jaeyeong’s level—
A sudden realization struck them, and Han Jaeyeong turned to Jeong Daon. “Are you— No, that was a pointless question.”
“My butt isn’t fine.” Having landed flat on her backside thanks to being tossed aside so casually, Jeong Daon replied indifferently.
At any rate, the two of them here didn’t seem likely to fall victim to that terrifying mana absorption. Perhaps angered by that fact, the monster, now the eye of the storm, was staring at them with hollow black eyes. It had looked strange enough in the dark cave, but under sunlight, the monster’s appearance was even more bizarre.
“No matter how you look at it, doesn’t that thing look human?”
Just not a living one. It was like a corpse moving. The stiff motions, the hardened skin, everything about it suggested that.
“A jiangshi or a zombie… something like that?”
The moment Han Jaeyeong said that—
The system has classified the monster’s rank as S-rank.
?? (unobserved): S-rank
The dungeon’s clear difficulty has been adjusted to A-rank.
Han Jaeyeong doubted their eyes. They prided themself on having plenty of experience as a Hunter clearing dungeons, but this was the first time they had ever seen a message like this.
“That thing is an S-rank monster?”
That was bad.
Across the entire history of South Korea, S-rank monsters had appeared only a handful of times. If it truly was an S-rank monster, then even Han Jaeyeong couldn’t clear this in their current state. At the very least, it was impossible to handle using items alone without magic.
But then Han Jaeyeong noticed something off.
Still, the dungeon clear difficulty is A-rank.
Even if the monster itself was rated S-rank, the dungeon remained A-rank. That meant they didn’t necessarily have to defeat it, or that it surely had some exploitable weakness.
They needed to stay calm. Han Jaeyeong slowly observed the monster.
At a glance, it didn’t look like something that deserved an S-rank classification. It wasn’t particularly fast, nor was its hide so thick that attacks bounced off harmlessly. The shockwave it fired from its mouth was certainly dangerous, but it took time before it could fire again, making it manageable. It was greedily absorbing the mana in the area, but Han Jaeyeong had sufficient control not to get caught up in it. Taken together, it didn’t seem like an especially difficult monster to deal with.
Still, if the system had judged it to be S-rank, there had to be a reason. It might be hiding some decisive attack.
“Grrr… uuhhh…”
Han Jaeyeong was on guard, watching the monster, when it suddenly raised a hand and slowly covered its own eyes, like someone seeing sunlight for the first time in ages.
Han Jaeyeong narrowed their eyes.
Could its vision be a weakness—
“Yeah. You wanted to see the sunlight, didn’t you.”
Han Jaeyeong turned their head. The one who spoke was, of course, Jeong Daon. Aside from the monster, there were only two “people” here, after all.
“But what good does that do you? You should’ve just died back there when you were buried. That would’ve been easier.”
However, Jeong Daon wasn’t speaking to Han Jaeyeong, even if the content of her words sounded like a curse.
A chill ran down Han Jaeyeong’s arms. According to the system, a monster was an enemy that invaded human territory and threatened survival, an existence whose interests conflicted with humanity’s, whose desires could never align, and who could never truly understand one another.
And yet…
“I may not be able to atone for my sibling’s sins, but I can at least grant you mercy.”
As if an absolute ruler were bestowing mercy, or perhaps, instead, asking for forgiveness, Jeong Daon’s words were clearly directed at someone, and they even carried a trace of compassion.
Yes. she was unmistakably “communicating” with the monster in front of them.
Then how many monsters were actually present here?
Distracted by that thought, Han Jaeyeong realized a moment too late.
The violently raging flow of mana around the monster had, at some point, stopped, abruptly and unnaturally.
And that halted flow of mana was now pouring into yet another monster, one wearing the guise of a human.
“All that rests upon my head is a bloodstained crown of arrogance. In these hands that have paid the price, no glory remains.”
By the time Han Jaeyeong finally understood what was unfolding before their eyes, they were already utterly shaken.
“Even so, I shall faithfully carry out my remaining duty.”