I looked around with a hollow gaze. Soldiers stood around me, outfitted with combat helmets, combat uniforms, combat boots, and their respective weapons.
To be exact, Hunter Corps soldiers.
“Byeon Ji-tak, Jeong Ye-som, Kang Seong-jun, Gu Yun-ho. You four make up the last group, Team 3. Ji-tak, you take charge as team leader and lead them well.”
“Corporal Byeon Ji-tak! Yes!”
Corporal Byeon Ji-tak.
Corporal Jeong Ye-som.
Private First Class Kang Seong-jun.
Not one of those names felt unfamiliar on my tongue.
Of course not.
They were the senior soldiers I'd eaten and slept alongside back then.
“There's only around ten of them at most, and even those are scattered here and there, but gnolls are still monsters. Exercise the utmost caution while carrying out the mission.”
“Yes!”
I remembered Staff Sergeant Kwon Min-chan, who was giving the orders, of course. We hadn't spent all that long together, but a few incidents had etched him more deeply into my mind than even those with whom I'd shared joys and hardships.
“Gu Yun-ho.”
Then came the name being called.
“Private Second Class Gu Yun-ho!”
Me.
I wanted to start by digging into why I'd suddenly regressed and why the hell this shitty situation had happened, but for now, I had a duty to fulfill.
A dungeon.
This was a place where life and death came and went.
“No need for you to step up. Just clean up after the others.”
“Understood.”
Staff Sergeant Kwon Min-chan always treated me like this.
A tool for cleaning up after everyone else.
An errand boy.
But I couldn't object.
Not because I was only a private.
I knew perfectly well that my skills were that poor.
“What a way to talk. He should worry about doing his own job right.”
A sharp, ringing voice came from beside me. A female mage soldier with strikingly large eyes.
Corporal Jeong Ye-som.
She tapped my arm and whispered.
“Yun-ho, don't mind what the squad leader said. Things are only a little rough for you right now. They'll get better later. When that happens, let's take down gnolls or whatever else comes along in style and make sure he can't say crap like that anymore.”
Yeah, Corporal Jeong Ye-som had always been like this. Covering for me and cheering me on.
The memories came back one after another.
And that was why I felt sorry.
Because even by the time Corporal Jeong Ye-som was discharged, I still hadn't made much progress.
“As if he'll get better. He'll be lucky if he doesn't sink even lower.”
Corporal Byeon Ji-tak, who was returning to his place, gave a nasty smile.
“That bastard Gu Yun-ho is just a retard.”
“What are you talking about? Get lost.”
“Heh. You're the one who should get lost. I'm the team leader.”
“Quit snickering.”
“You get that ugly mug of yours out of my sight.”
Corporal Byeon Ji-tak. This bastard is impossible to forget. Verbal abuse was a given with him, and he never hesitated to resort to violence. A demon and a piece of trash.
I was one of the people who suffered most at his hands.
“Don't you agree, Seong-jun? Isn't Jeong Ye-som's face even harder to look at?”
“Heh heh. That's right.”
The same went for Private First Class Kang Seong-jun, glued to his side.
Before I knew it, my fist had clenched.
I wanted nothing more than to clock him in the jaw and fight him, but I forced myself to hold back.
I couldn't end up in military detention just to vent my bitterness.
I'd be lucky if military detention was all I got. If things went wrong and the situation escalated, I could be stripped of my Hunter qualification.
For now, I had to endure it.
“All right, then. Each team, move into position.”
“Positions!”
The three teams moved north, west, and east, respectively. As part of Corporal Byeon Ji-tak's team, I headed east.
The terrain was a forest.
Green waves spread beneath a blue sky. It was a beautiful sight fit for a movie, but unfortunately, every inch of this place was a battlefield.
Corporal Jeong Ye-som seemed thoroughly displeased by that.
“Yun-ho, does this make any sense? We have to spend our time fighting monsters in a place this beautiful?”
“It seems very wrong.”
“Right?”
“Yes.”
Still grumbling, she glared at Corporal Byeon Ji-tak and Private First Class Kang Seong-jun up ahead.
“I swear, I might just set their heads on fire.”
“Should you really stain those pretty hands with filthy blood? Please restrain yourself, Corporal Jeong Ye-som.”
“Pfft, all right.”
Her mood quickly improved, and Corporal Jeong Ye-som asked me a question.
“I didn't know our Yun-ho could say things like that. You've got a surprisingly cute side to you.”
It wasn't that I knew how. I'd learned.
When you climbed all the way from the enlisted ranks to Master Sergeant, sucking up naturally became second nature.
Well, Corporal Jeong Ye-som really was pretty too. Hadn't about fifteen guys in the company confessed to her?
Just then.
I heard a rustle from some distance up ahead.
“Huh?”
When I abruptly stopped walking, Corporal Jeong Ye-som stopped with me.
“What's wrong, Yun-ho?”
“What is it? Hurry up and follow us.”
Corporal Byeon Ji-tak looked back with a frown. His hulking frame closed the distance to me in an instant.
There was a sword in my hand.
“Planning to draw pictures in the air with that sword? What's with this shit all of a sudden, you fucking bastard? You want to die?”
No one else had heard the sound, but I had.
Of course.
They had barely a year of field experience at most.
I had twenty-five.
Even without a hearing-related ability, I could easily pick up a rustle like that.
I even knew what had made it.
“They're coming.”
“Coming, my ass, you bastard. Are you really that desperate to die... huh?!”
Corporal Byeon Ji-tak couldn't finish his sentence. A monster the color of ink had burst through the brush.
The creature stood 170 centimeters tall and had broad, flat ears. It held a club in both hands.
A club studded with sharp spikes.
Why had that thing seemed so terrifying at first?
Now it just looks like a cute puppy.
A spiked club?
In game terms, that thing doesn't even have five attack patterns.
I could dodge every one of them with my eyes closed.
“W-when did those things get here?! Just crush them!”
Unfortunately, there was no need for me to step in. Corporal Byeon Ji-tak, wielding a sword, and Private First Class Kang Seong-jun, carrying a shield, rushed at them.
Two of them in total.
We had the numerical advantage.
FWOOSH—!
“Blaze, O flame!”
Corporal Jeong Ye-som in the rear was already casting magic. A blazing-red mass bloomed above the crystal orb of her staff.
As a low-circle spell, its firepower would be very low, but the enemy was just a gnoll.
It was more than enough to deal damage.
SLASH—!
Corporal Byeon Ji-tak's sword had already carved a deep wound into one gnoll's torso.
His personality was shitty, but he was fairly skilled.
He finished it off in one swift move, plunging his sword into its head as it reeled in confusion, its arm ablaze.
FWOOSH—!
Private First Class Kang Seong-jun's fight was a little less smooth, with his combat uniform getting slightly torn, but the result was still victory. This time, Corporal Jeong Ye-som had burned both of the gnoll's legs with fire magic.
“Easy enough.”
“Sure is.”
The two of them probably could've subdued the gnolls on their own. But Corporal Jeong Ye-som exploited the openings, making things much easier.
The fact that neither of them shed a single drop of blood was entirely thanks to her.
“Look at them. They don't know the first thing about teamwork. They've got no sense of comradeship.”
“They'll get themselves badly hurt someday, trying to do everything by themselves.”
“I really hope they do. Oh, but...”
Corporal Jeong Ye-som cast a glance toward the brush the gnolls had come out of and spoke.
“How did you know? It was a decent distance away.”
“I heard a sound.”
“A sound?”
“The brush rustled, so I figured there were gnolls in there.”
“Wow, you actually heard that? I seriously didn't hear a thing.”
“You just got lucky and heard it once. Stop making such a big deal out of it.”
Naturally, Corporal Byeon Ji-tak refused to give me any credit.
But I saw it.
A brief distortion flashed across his features.
His pride had been wounded.
He was a corporal and the team leader, yet someone he always looked down on had instantly noticed something he himself had missed.
Maybe that was why he kept taking his temper out on me.
“What'd you grab your sword for? Planning to fight or something? Hahaha. Fuck, do you even know how to stab or slash? A bastard who can't even complete his specialty training properly has no business stepping up.”
“Why're you starting shit again? You should be thanking him for helping us avoid an ambush.”
“Ambush? What a joke. You think I'd fall for something like that?”
I'll give him that.
I'd been going over my memories, and I had no memory of Corporal Byeon Ji-tak getting hurt in today's gnoll dungeon.
If anything, I was the one who got hurt.
Badly enough to be carried all the way to the Armed Forces Capital Hospital.
The reason was obvious.
A gnoll that suddenly sprang out from the side had slammed its spiked club into my back.
Even a combat uniform with sturdy defenses couldn't do much against a direct hit.
It had happened so suddenly that no one could do anything about it.
“Hmm, excuse me for a moment.”
“What?”
This time is different.
“There's a rat bastard hiding off to the side.”
I turned and snapped my arm forward with all my strength. The sword left my hand like a javelin.
SHNK—!
“Ghk!”
With a death cry, something slumped to the ground in front of the brush that had seemed empty.
It was some gnoll that had apparently been there for who knew how long.
Its heart pierced through, it died instantly.
“SKREE—!”
At the same time, another gnoll leapt down from a great tree off to the side, its trunk thick enough to wrap both arms around.
Come on, then. I already knew about you too.
SWISH.
I twisted my body slightly, and the spiked club slammed into the hapless ground instead. At the same moment, the gnoll's body lurched violently.
I drove my left foot hard into its side.
“GRAAAK!”
The gnoll screamed and rolled across the ground.
Even if regression had taken away all my strength, I'd spent twenty-five years surviving battles over mountains and across waters alike.
A few gnolls like these were nothing.
I gestured toward it with my chin.
“Corporal Byeon Ji-tak, are you going to keep watching?”
Corporal Byeon Ji-tak's face was painted with shock.