Lena stared blankly as she felt the flow of Mana.
“It’s so…… beautiful.”
SKREEEEEE—!
Thousands of streaks of lightning plunged from the sky toward the monsters on the ground.
KABOOOOOM—!
SKRAAAAAAGH—!
The monsters struck by lightning were charred in an instant.
Some were unable to withstand it and simply exploded.
Immediately afterward, crimson fire that seemed capable of melting everything poured down like rain.
SKREEEEEEEEEE———!
Then, cutting straight through the heat, a Blizzard so fierce it was difficult to even keep one’s eyes open swept through.
THUNK-THUNK-THUNK-THUNK-THUNK—!
Sharp shards of ice flew like bullets, digging into the monsters’ flesh.
KABOOM—!
The sight of lightning, fire, and a Blizzard all pouring down across a vast area at once was spectacular.
The monsters fell one after another as though they were literally being swept clean.
[Current Mana : 200]
[Critical Warning : Mana consumption rate is high.]
‘Dispel.’
A short while later, the clouds cleared.
Every monster that had been charging toward Kang Hyeon-woo and Lena was dead.
Some had been burned. Others had exploded after being struck by lightning-type attacks. Still others had been torn apart by spike-like shards of ice.
RRRRRRRUMBLE.
The buildings damaged by the powerful magic collapsed completely.
Daejeon’s Ground Zero had been swept clean by the magic of Kang Hyeon-woo alone.
“Wow. So there aren’t any monsters anymore?”
“It’s only temporary.”
They had not cleared the Anomalies—in other words, the Dungeons.
Dungeons that no one cleared would continue causing Breaks and bursting open, pouring out monsters.
Before long, this place would become a paradise for monsters once again.
“We’re moving. Lead me to the place where the Mana flow feels strange.”
“Okay! And thank you.”
Lena grinned broadly and bowed deeply.
A questioning look entered Kang Hyeon-woo’s eyes.
“Ah! Those spells just now! When I looked at the Stream, I realized you taught me something incredible.”
“First, let’s correct your terminology. Call it Mana. Not the Stream.”
“Okay! Mana! Hehe.”
Lena hummed as she walked through the ruins.
With one arm, she followed the Mana flow she had just learned and alternated between creating snow, fire, and electrical energy.
A half android from a ruined world.
Kang Hyeon-woo watched Lena for a moment as she hummed a meaningless tune and disappeared among the ruins.
“Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter.”
***
“Here!”
Seodaejeon Negeori Station.
Long ago, it had been used as a subway station.
There had been stations with similar names on either side of it, which had once made it a frequent source of jokes.
As Kang Hyeon-woo entered the ruined subway station, briefly recalling old memories, he cast a spell.
‘Detect.’
He sensed no monsters.
As Lena descended into the subway station, she used gravity magic to clear the blocked passage.
“Ooh, this is really useful.”
Watching her, Kang Hyeon-woo suddenly asked,
“How exactly are you using Mana?”
“Huh?”
“Mana. A Mage draws out their own Mana to control the Mana flowing around them.”
The higher the level of the magic, the wider its range, and the longer it lasted, the more extreme the Mana consumption became.
Yet from everything Kang Hyeon-woo had seen so far, Lena had never seemed to experience any difficulty using magic.
“Hmm…… I’m not really sure. The Stream…… I mean, controlling Mana doesn’t feel particularly difficult or anything…….”
“A Mage who doesn’t know their own limits can suddenly drop dead. Make sure you check later, at the very least.”
Kang Hyeon-woo needed Lena, his living tracker.
Lena was not even an Awakened Mercenary, so she had no objective numerical value for her Mana.
If she carelessly drew out Mana without understanding anything and died, the journey ahead would undoubtedly become troublesome.
“Okay!”
The deeper they went, the darker it became as the light faded.
‘Light.’
A sphere of light floated beside Kang Hyeon-woo, illuminating the dark subway station.
“Wow……! I want to do it too! What’s this one?”
“Light.”
“Ooh! Light! Light! Light!”
Several spheres of light appeared around Lena.
They were so bright that it was difficult to keep their eyes open.
‘Dispel.’
Kang Hyeon-woo dispelled all but one of Lena’s Lights.
“Wow! Just now…… something in the Mana got cut off!”
“That’s Dispel.”
“I want to try too! Dispel!”
Lena’s Light immediately disappeared.
But Kang Hyeon-woo’s Light remained exactly where it was.
Lena cast Dispel several times, her frown deepening each time.
“Huh……? Why isn’t it working?”
“It’s a difference in level. High-level Mages control Mana in their own complex ways. Dispelling another person’s magic requires considerable experience.”
“Tch.”
Lena used all her magic with Kang Hyeon-woo’s Mana-control signature.
For Kang Hyeon-woo, it was something he could dispel with his eyes closed.
Lena grumbled and stuck out her lower lip.
“I’ll teach you someday, so focus.”
At Kang Hyeon-woo’s words, Lena grinned again.
“Hehe! Okay! Oh! Over there!”
.
.
.
A white portal had formed on the subway platform.
At a glance, the brilliant, radiant white light it emitted made it obvious that it was a Special Dungeon.
‘This would’ve been the safest option.’
It was the same method as the one he had seen in Castle Gaudium.
There could hardly be a safer place for a private warehouse than a world inside a Dungeon.
Especially when the entrance to that warehouse was underground in the middle of Ground Zero.
“Let’s go in.”
Kang Hyeon-woo and Lena entered the Dungeon through the portal.
***
“Oh?! I think this place is a cave!”
Cool air.
The first thing Kang Hyeon-woo and Lena saw was a cave large enough for a subway train to pass through.
Lena’s voice echoed throughout the cave.
Their eyes naturally turned toward the walls.
The smooth, even finish made it clear that this cave had never been formed naturally.
‘Identify.’
[S-Grade Magic Skill (Identify) used]
[Dungeon Grade : S]
[Dungeon Progress : 0%]
[Number of Attempts : 85]
[Objective : Eliminate all living beings within the designated area]
It was a Dungeon with no restrictions.
‘S-Grade.’
It was an exceptionally rare Dungeon.
Most S-Grade Dungeons involved endless waves of absurdly large, medium-to-large-class monsters.
Some also contained extraordinarily powerful monsters.
‘Knowing Jino, there’s no way he would’ve cleared this place out.’
If Jino, an extremely cautious Assassin and information broker, was using an S-Grade Dungeon as his private warehouse, there had to be a reason.
Back when Kang Hyeon-woo had entered S-Grade Dungeons during his active days, he had been surrounded by dependable companions and every kind of support imaginable.
But now, all he had was a lone Mercenary who had wandered for more than a century and a young half android.
‘Detect.’
He still sensed no monsters.
Feeling a taut tension against his skin for the first time in ages, Kang Hyeon-woo headed deeper into the cave.
.
.
.
The cave was not particularly long.
They had barely walked any distance before faint light began flickering at the end of the path.
Kang Hyeon-woo took two Cores Jino had given him from his bag and chewed them down.
[500 Mana restored.]
[500 Mana restored.]
[Direct Core consumption…….]
‘So I’ve only broken even.’
Two Cores.
Considering the labor cost, it was a losing proposition.
Hoping there would be Cores here as well, Kang Hyeon-woo cautiously continued inward.
“Wooooow!”
Lena looked around in amazement.
Calling it enormous was not enough.
It was a single gigantic cavern.
‘Magic.’
The light illuminating the cave came from magical torches.
Hundreds of torches arranged endlessly along the walls illuminated the vast cavern as brightly as midday.
The cavern itself was barren and empty.
There were only three small doors against the distant wall.
‘What was this place used for?’
“Ahahaha! Yahoo!”
Apparently delighted by the echoes of her own voice, Lena ran around laughing.
Leaving the restless Lena behind, Kang Hyeon-woo entered the first door built into the wall.
‘Was this somewhere people lived?’
The room contained nothing but a small bed and a single table.
The bed was so clean that it looked as though it had never been used.
Finding nothing particularly unusual, Kang Hyeon-woo entered the second room.
“Whoa! It’s like last time!”
Lena exclaimed.
The second room contained mountains of gold, silver, and various treasures.
Things that were completely useless on Earth now.
Kang Hyeon-woo immediately took Lena into the final room.
“Wow! These are books, right?”
The last room was filled with books.
There seemed to be more of them than in the small neighborhood library Kang Hyeon-woo had seen when he was young.
Kang Hyeon-woo pulled out a random book and opened it.
‘Is it the same language?’
The book Park Seong-jun had marked.
It appeared to be written in the same language as that one.
“Mister! Over here!”
Lena’s voice came from far beyond the bookshelves.
“This is it, right?”
“Yeah. A standard Shinhwa cabinet.”
It was an object from Earth that Kang Hyeon-woo recognized.
The cabinet occupying one side of the wall was a standardized storage unit supplied by Shinhwa.
Kang Hyeon-woo took out the key card Madam Grace had given him and opened the cabinet.
The door opened smoothly.
All that lay inside was a pair of bracelets, two torn scraps of paper, and the five Old-Model Energy Cores Kang Hyeon-woo had been hoping for.
One of the torn scraps once again contained writing in a familiar hand.
It seemed to have been scribbled in a hurry, as the letters grew fainter toward the end.
[I won’t say I’m sorry. I only hope you’ll understand. If fate is guiding us, this will find its way into your hands. If it does…….]
‘……Caroline.’
Words whose meaning Kang Hyeon-woo could not understand at all.
He checked the other note.
[Shinhwa Company Intelligence Bureau Trends Report SCS-17001]
[Classification : Top Secret]
[Unauthorized access punishable by elimination]
[Reliability : 100%]
[Full Text : 1. Special Anomaly Break at Fort Busan Marina. 2. Contact with intelligent beings confirmed. 3. Damage impossible to predict. 4. Emergency support from headquarters required. 5. Characteristics include…….]
The rest had been torn away, making it impossible to read further.
Kang Hyeon-woo carefully folded the note, put it into his pocket, and picked up the Cores.
“Oh! Mister, the Core you just picked up has a really strong Mr. Bear feeling coming from it!”
Kang Hyeon-woo paused just as he was about to put the Core away with a familiar motion.
‘Identify.’
[Old-Model Energy Core]
[Manufacturer : ????]
[Improved Energy Core. Restores an enormous amount of Mana. - Beast]
‘……?’
An Energy Core bearing Park Seong-jun’s manufacturing signature.
‘Mana?’
That bastard had no need for Mana.
Thanks to the buffs they had cast on each other, he should have been living with his Mana at zero.
There was no reason for him to make something like this.
After thinking for a moment, Kang Hyeon-woo put one of the Cores into his mouth and swallowed it.
[5,000 Mana restored.]
‘Five thousand……?’
Kang Hyeon-woo’s eyes widened slightly.
Park Seong-jun must have found a way to extend his Life Force.
In the process, he had probably created Cores for restoring Mana as a byproduct.
Then he must have secretly hidden them here.
With that thought, Kang Hyeon-woo carefully stored the remaining Cores and picked up the bracelets.
[??-Grade ■agic Art■]
[■■available]
[Amplifies Mana through ??.]
‘Mana amplification?’
Kang Hyeon-woo had seen plenty of items that improved the utilization efficiency of Core energy.
But even he had never seen an item specifically designed to amplify Mana.
On top of that, even the text was corrupted.
‘There’s no need to wear something strange for no reason.’
Just as Kang Hyeon-woo put the bracelets into his bag—
Chill.
An unbearable sensation swept over him.
***
It was a dizzying sensation that he could not even put into words.
It was something entirely new, unlike anything he had felt even before humanity’s final Dungeon.
The chilling sensation was coming from beyond that door.
Kang Hyeon-woo slowly opened the door and stepped outside.
And standing there was—
A woman with long, straight silver hair falling to her waist.
The woman stared expressionlessly at Kang Hyeon-woo as he came through the door.
She looked at him and spoke.
“Who are you?”
“None of your concern.”
“Ordinarily, that would be true. But this is my lair. You entered my home without permission, so I must know.”
“So you’re the monster?”
“How amusing. You are the first human to say such a thing to me. But ignorance cannot grant absolution.”
“I didn’t know a monster could speak this fluently.”
“I will commend you for neither going mad nor dying immediately upon seeing me.”
“You’re quite a self-important monster.”
Kang Hyeon-woo and the woman stared at each other with equally expressionless faces.
The woman lowered her gaze for a moment as though thinking about something, then raised an arm and pointed a finger at Kang Hyeon-woo.
“I have lost interest. You managed to hold my attention for a moment, so I will grant you an easy death.”
Kang Hyeon-woo flinched.
He felt an enormous amount of Mana rearranging itself at a speed he had never seen or even imagined in his entire life.
‘Absolute Shield.’
Kang Hyeon-woo instinctively moved Lena behind him and poured all his Mana into deploying the shield.
‘Phase Intervention.’
Just as the spell Kang Hyeon-woo cast began separating the phase—
The expressionless woman opened her mouth.
“Dragon Tongue. Power Word, Kill.”
Her clear voice, seemingly impossible to resist, rang throughout the cavern.
CRACK—!
For the first time, Kang Hyeon-woo felt Absolute Shield break.
An overwhelming haze washed over him, and he lost consciousness.