“It really looks like the debuff isn’t affecting him at all.”
“Is… that even possible? I’ve never seen anything like it….”
“They say that person even healed mental contamination, so maybe something really is different about him? Like his skill is special….”
Bewilderment spread across the Hunters’ faces.
The coercive force of a dungeon was a law that acted on every Hunter without exception.
There were differences in whether one felt it strongly or weakly, but feeling nothing at all was impossible.
“Hunter Song Ji-hu, do you not feel anything?”
Yoon Yeong-su asked carefully.
“No. I don’t feel anything. It seems Mental Barrier is applied to me by default.”
Yoon Yeong-su’s hands trembled. Mental Barrier, mental contamination healing, and on top of that, a Hunter freed from a dungeon’s coercive force?
Just how many things outside common sense were going to happen to that man?
Song Ji-hu himself was also feeling something strange inwardly. When he entered the Gate and stepped into the dungeon, he had been mentally prepared to deploy Mental Barrier on himself.
‘Strange. It’s definitely strange.’
Over six lives, he had experienced countless dungeons. Every time, a dungeon’s coercive force had applied to him as well. But now….
He felt nothing.
‘Is it because of Mental Dive and the compass…?’
A faint vibration came from inside his clothes. The old brass compass in his pocket was trembling in time with his heartbeat.
RUMBLE-!
Before he had time to organize his thoughts, the ground shook with a roar from far away.
“Let’s go. It looks like it has started.”
Following Yu Heon-sik’s orders, all Hunters except Yoon Yeong-su began moving toward the fortress wall.
When they arrived at the wall, knights who had become specters were preparing for battle.
“Prepare for battle! They will soon come pouring in! Gather before the fortress gate! The gate will soon be breached!”
The wall was on the verge of collapse, and there were not many knights left.
In that desperate situation, despair and fear were clearly visible on the faces of the fewer than two hundred remaining knights.
“This is a B-rank dungeon? Those damn Association bastards….”
“Exactly… This should be A-rank.”
BOOM-!
With the impact, the fortress gate rattled as if it would break at any moment. Pieces of the gate fell away in chunks, and the knights raised their swords.
“Hold your position to the end! It is His Imperial Majesty’s solemn command!”
Even the trembling voice of the knight at the very front could not hide his fear.
CRASH-!
“Everyone, prepare for battle. Ranged fighters in the center, melee fighters in a triangle.”
At Yu Heon-sik’s instructions, the Hunters formed a formation.
“Maintain the formation as much as possible, and fight while using the knights as shields. Hunter Eun Seo-jin, please move freely!”
“Understood.”
“The fortress gate is breaking! Brace yourselves!”
The knights raised their shields, and at the same time, the fortress gate half-shattered, and enemies poured in.
“For His Imperial Majesty!”
The knights surged toward the gate to block the enemies, and the Hunters slowly advanced after them.
In Song Ji-hu’s eyes, the enemies looked like masses of condensed trauma and rotten emotion.
“Mental-body masses….”
In the end, every dungeon in the world was a trap the Abyssal Monarch had sown to harvest his feed.
Shing-
Eun Seo-jin drew his twin swords. The cold pouring from the blades froze the frost spread across the floor.
“Shall we begin?”
Song Ji-hu nodded and gave a short command.
“Go. I’ll take care of myself.”
FWOOSH-!
Eun Seo-jin’s form blurred. In the space of a blink, a blue trajectory split the air, and the frontmost horde of enemies rushing in was divided into upper and lower halves.
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-!
Ice spikes scattered and erupted, piercing through the enemies’ armor. His movements made the three-year gap seem meaningless.
“Insane… As expected of an S-rank….”
The Hunters watching from behind lost themselves in the battle on a completely different level, their mouths hanging open.
“Come to your senses! We didn’t come here to sightsee!”
With Yu Heon-sik’s shout, the battle began in earnest.
“Let as few through as possible!”
“Yes!”
When they pushed the enemies outside the fortress wall.
“What… the….”
Everyone’s expressions hardened at the enemies gathered there in numbers that seemed endless.
There was no empty space in the field beyond the wall. Enemies were swarming in, packed tight, to bring down the fortress wall.
“Everyone, conserve your stamina as much as possible.”
“Dammit… I’d believe it if someone said this was A-plus rank, not A-rank.”
“This is the worst. The enemies don’t die easily, and there are a damn lot of them.”
As the endless battle continued, Song Ji-hu stood at the rear of the formation and activated Mental Detection.
In an instant, the scenery of the battlefield changed. What his eyes saw was still a melee where blood and flesh flew, but his senses were reading something invisible.
The emotional waves pouring from the enemies.
Rage, hatred, despair, and above all, the strongest thing was-
Obsession.
The black masses breaking down the fortress gate and surging in, and the knights guarding this fortress.
All of them were bound by their own commands and repeating the attack forever.
‘Interesting.’
Song Ji-hu’s eyes narrowed.
There was a point among the enemies where he felt a particularly strong wave. A larger being mixed among the ordinary soldiers. It was probably commander-class.
This time, when he turned his gaze to the knights and used Residual Thought, the final emotions of the dying knights surged in like a tide.
‘His Imperial Majesty… the command… must be obeyed….’
‘My family… are they safe…?’
‘I’m afraid… I can’t run….’
At the raw, unfiltered emotions, Song Ji-hu furrowed his brow.
“Graaagh!”
A ranged damage dealer providing support fire from the rear sank to his knees and screamed as thoughts dug into his head.
Mental Barrier had reduced the debuff, but it had not blocked it completely. As fatigue from the long battle piled up, their mental strength was beginning to bottom out.
‘Thought Projection.’
When Song Ji-hu stretched out his hand, a silver wave containing peace and stillness spread from his fingertips.
“……?”
The damage dealer who had fallen to his knees raised his head. The fear on his face faded a little.
“Suddenly… I feel a little better?”
“Me too. What is this? My head suddenly cleared.”
Murmurs spread among the Hunters. Song Ji-hu nodded.
‘It has an effect.’
It seemed he could raise his allies’ combat power with Thought Projection. At the same time, he could identify the enemies’ arrangement and strength through Mental Detection, and read fragments of battlefield information through Residual Thought.
If Mental Barrier touched an enemy’s mental body, it could deal damage, but that was all.
‘It isn’t particularly useful for offense.’
Song Ji-hu reached a cold conclusion.
‘I have no choice but to rely on experience for combat….’
CRACK-!
Eun Seo-jin’s sword cut through an enemy, but a faint wobble could be seen at the end of its trajectory.
“Haa… haa….”
Even Eun Seo-jin seemed burdened by his three-year absence and began breathing roughly.
“When the hell does this end?”
“Dammit! The enemies aren’t decreasing!”
“This is serious, isn’t it? There’s no end to them!”
At the screams bursting out here and there, Yu Heon-sik clenched his teeth. They had only been able to endure this long because Eun Seo-jin was there.
Thanks to Mental Barrier, the debuff was bearable, but before sheer numbers, they were helpless.
“How are we supposed to clear this…?”
Just as someone muttered despairingly.
“Change formation.”
Song Ji-hu’s cold voice rang low.
“What?”
Yu Heon-sik turned around with a bewildered face. Song Ji-hu was already walking toward the front line.
“We use the collapsed wall as the defensive line. Limit the vanguard to two people, and have the rest rotate and rest.”
“Wait, what are you….”
“There’s no time.”
Song Ji-hu brushed past Yu Heon-sik’s shoulder and drew his sword.
“I’ll enter the vanguard, so Eun Seo-jin, conserve your stamina for a bit.”
“Yes. Understood.”
Yu Heon-sik blinked. Song Ji-hu? In the vanguard? And a Hunter entering for the first time today, at that?
But why was Eun Seo-jin accepting that as if it were only natural?
“Wait a moment. Hunter Song Ji-hu is mental-type, isn’t he? And this is his first dungeon….”
One Hunter who had been firing magic from the rear hurriedly cut in, but Song Ji-hu had already firmly blocked the gap in the collapsed wall.
“Has he lost his mind…!”
Yu Heon-sik shouted. The one and only mental-type Hunter in the world capable of healing mental contamination, standing in the vanguard inside a dungeon? It was no different from suicide.
But.
Swish-
Song Ji-hu’s sword cut through the air. Very simply.
His body moved before his thoughts did. From cutting the neck of an enemy charging in, to stabbing the next enemy through the heart, to splitting the third enemy’s upper body.
His movements continued without a single wasted motion.
With three movements, three enemies fell.
“…….”
It was not unfamiliar. This feeling. The weight of the sword transmitted to his palm, even the heaviness that climbed up his wrist right after cutting something down. The memory of his body, repeated thousands of times, remained intact, without rusting.
Song Ji-hu lightly shook off his sword. He slowed the enemy’s movements with Mental Barrier and cut again.
“What are you standing around for? Are you not going to focus?”
Song Ji-hu looked back and barked at the other Hunters.
“I told you to change formation. One person joins me in the vanguard, the rest rotate and rest. When you recover your stamina, switch with me.”
“Y-yes, understood!”
Yu Heon-sik hurriedly began giving orders, but the initiative had already passed completely to Song Ji-hu.
Thanks to the debris of the fortress wall, the gap leading into the wall was narrow. A width that could be blocked perfectly by two people standing there.
“This is definitely better.”
“Why didn’t we do this from the start?”
“Who could’ve expected there’d be this many enemies?”
“He grasps the situation way too fast. Is he really a brand-new Hunter?”
“Isn’t he one of those Hunters the Association raised? The person who came for today’s briefing is the Association President’s secretary. Yoon Yeong-su.”
At the constant murmuring, Song Ji-hu gave a faint laugh. It seemed that once this dungeon was cleared, the community would be turned upside down again.
‘Strange.’
Setting aside those passing thoughts, Song Ji-hu looked beyond the fortress wall at the enemies surging in endlessly.
‘It’s clear the method to clear this isn’t defeating the enemies.’
After two failed raids, its rank had been raised to A-minus, but if the measuring device had measured it as B-rank, that meant its grade was about right.
But if they were enemies from a B-rank dungeon, it should be possible to annihilate them with this number of people. Yet the current numbers were clearly outside that category.
‘What if defeating the enemies isn’t the goal?’
Dungeons like this were rare, but that did not mean they did not exist. As befitting a trap created by the Abyssal Monarch, a dungeon’s visible side was not everything.
‘Even when this dungeon was cleared, after repeated annihilations, they threw in several S-rank Hunters and ended it by killing all the enemies.’
Aside from killing every last endlessly surging enemy, there had to be another clear condition.
Song Ji-hu once again recalled the dungeon’s name, background explanation, and clear conditions.
‘The knights are bound by a command. The enemies are the same. Both are only repeating endless battle, but… what if.’
Song Ji-hu’s gaze turned to the knights exchanging blows with the enemies, then to the command flag inside the collapsed fortress wall.
‘What if… the knights and enemies aren’t separate, but one? What if the dungeon itself exists for a single purpose?’
The puzzle pieces began fitting together in his mind.
‘There are dungeons like that. Dungeons where you have to achieve a specific objective.’
Another enemy fell. As Song Ji-hu swung his sword, he felt the vibration of the compass trembling faintly inside his clothes.
The answer was almost there.