"Whew, that's the twentieth."
Garam finished off the last Blue Lizard and wiped the sweat running down his forehead.
Two hours had already passed since he entered the Deep Crystal Cave.
The word "deep" hadn't been attached for nothing; no matter how far he followed the path down, there was no end in sight.
"I should mark this path too."
Crimson Flame burned in Garam's hand.
Unlike earlier, when it had looked ready to swallow everything like a wave.
it was a small ember, barely rising within his palm.
Garam pressed his hand against the cave wall.
SIZZLE—
Along with the smell of burning plants, the shape of Garam's palm was seared into the cave wall.
It wasn't a very large mark.
Perhaps because the moss glowed so brightly.
the burned patch alone was unnaturally dark, even seen from far off.
[It really does stand out when you do it like that.]
Carmilla, who had flown up into the air, looked back behind Garam.
The cave path alternated dark and bright at regular intervals.
It was the route Garam had traveled so far.
"The Deep Crystal Cave branches in every direction. Without marks like this, it's easy to lose your way."
As one small example of that.
"I've already lost Kim Tae-hyeon."
Even looking back, he couldn't sense any trace of Kim Tae-hyeon, who had been chasing him.
It wasn't that the man was simply hiding.
The Deep Crystal Cave was deep enough to call an anthill to mind, and its paths split into dozens of branches.
And once you took a wrong path, even a fork right beside you could carry you in a completely opposite direction.
"I never thought burning up all that moss back then would help this much."
After the wave of Crimson Flame swept through, the luminous moss had all burned away, leaving the cave in a darkness like a blackout.
And in that interval, he had held his breath at a fork in the path, and when Kim Tae-hyeon passed by, he headed the opposite way.
[But doesn't that mean we can't reach our destination either?]
The destination they were headed for was the very bottom of the Deep Crystal Cave.
The Bat-Man's habitat.
"All the paths lead underground anyway, so it doesn't matter."
There was a reason the Deep Crystal Cave was called an anthill.
Any opened path might wind back on itself, but in the end it connected to the deepest point.
Just following an open path down, reaching the destination was no trouble at all.
"And our goal isn't simply to subjugate the boss."
Garam's reason for coming here was to investigate the missing people and the traces of the Blood Point Stones.
Killing monsters was a secondary matter.
"And I'm fairly sure I heard there's a spot near here where people go missing a lot."
At a glance the cave all looked the same, but.
FWIP.
Garam pulled out the map he had received from Hae-rang.
Back then, when he had been picked on by Kim Tae-hyeon and was walking out of the meeting room.
-If you insist on doing it, Garam, I won't stop you... but take this.
It was the map Hae-rang had forced into his hands.
'Something like this can't cost one or two coins.'
Maps used inside gates were generally expensive.
You couldn't exactly put a satellite up inside a gate, so of course people had to draw them by hand, stitch by stitch.
And for gates with terrain as filthy as the Deep Crystal Cave, the price could double regardless of Grade.
"Having a map makes this a lot easier."
The spot where they had stopped was close to what was called a safe zone.
A place where monsters didn't respawn and any damage was repaired in an instant, so hunters could rest a while.
It was also the place where hunters had been disappearing most often lately.
"It's right ahead."
Garam moved forward together with Carmilla.
Before long there stood an incongruous wooden door, as if to announce that this was the safe zone.
Carved above the wooden door was the Association's logo, proof that humans had installed it.
Garam put his hand on the handle to enter the safe zone.
And then Garam could feel it.
That there was something behind this door.
And that it was not a person.
An unpleasant, filthy sensation.
An indescribable presence radiated from behind the door.
[What are you doing? Aren't you going to open it?]
Carmilla asked, hanging from Garam's shoulder.
She didn't seem to have noticed that something was inside.
'Get back.'
[What? Why all of a sudden? Is there something in there?]
When he gave a small nod instead of an answer, Carmilla's expression hardened and she slid off his shoulder and drew back.
After confirming Carmilla was far enough away.
Garam tightened his grip on the axe.
CRASH—!
He kicked the wooden door open.
Behind the door, flung open hard enough to shatter it.
Inside.
[There's nothing here?]
There was nothing behind the door.
"That can't be right."
The unpleasant presence had vanished the instant the door opened.
Inside the safe zone were a small wooden table and a chair.
And a few pieces of bedding left behind by hunters. That was all.
Still gripping his axe and keeping his guard up, Garam stepped into the safe zone.
[Why, you little— you got scared, didn't you? Didn't you? Didn't you?]
But Carmilla burst out laughing at him, as though she had caught him at something.
"That's not it, all right?"
He had felt it clearly.
That utterly repulsive presence that had been in here.
The sensation was far too vivid to write off as imagination.
Unable to settle on any answer, Garam sighed and dropped into the chair.
Perhaps because he sat down so roughly.
a bowl on the table fell to the floor.
TONK-
A sound rang out.
'Huh?'
Not from the bowl, but from the floor.
A sound as though everything below it was completely hollow.
And at that same moment.
Garam shot up hard enough to overturn the table and tried to get out of the safe zone, but.
RUMBLE—!
A monster burst up through the floor where the bowl had fallen, caving the ground in as it revealed itself.
The monster, shaped like an earthworm, appeared, swallowed Garam whole, and burrowed straight back into the earth without so much as a backward glance.
[Wh-what the— Hey! Kim Garam!]
All that was left was Carmilla, standing there blankly alone.
and the safe zone, which repaired itself so fast that there was no way to follow.
***
A sudden monster attack.
And Garam, swallowed by that monster.
'I probably won't die from this.'
was surprisingly calm.
Perhaps because he had already survived one brush with death.
The monster's stomach fluid was filthy, but bearable enough.
'The biggest thing is that this monster doesn't seem to have any way of killing me right now.'
It hadn't been long since he was swallowed, yet Garam felt a sense of déjà vu.
The thing was, this monster had no teeth, and the stomach fluid smearing over his body was nothing more than sticky slime.
In other words, this monster had no ability to harm anything.
As if it had been made purely to 'transport' someone, exactly as it was doing now.
'It's not that I can't escape, either.'
But if he got out now, wouldn't he be crushed to death under a pile of rock?
Judging by how it had burst through the floor, this monster most likely moved by digging its own tunnels through the cave.
There would surely be a moment when it emerged from the rock, and escaping then would be enough.
RUMBLE.
Sure enough.
Before long, Garam could see light again.
-HRRK, HAKK!
The monster spat Garam out as though vomiting.
Having barely escaped the monster's stomach, Garam slowly pushed himself upright.
A vast cavern, beyond any comparison with the safe zone.
The hemispherical cavern had dozens of holes in it.
"Is this... don't tell me, the boss room?"
Hurriedly unfolding the map Hae-rang had given him, Garam was certain.
This was the boss room.
The deepest underground point of the Deep Crystal Cave.
The boss room, also called the Bat-Man's habitat.
'A monster that appears in the safe zone where the serial disappearances happen. And the place that monster arrives at is the boss room.'
Could that really be a coincidence?
While he was thinking that, the earthworm monster writhing behind him began to move.
Garam braced in case it attacked again, but.
making his caution pointless, the earthworm monster ignored him and simply crawled forward.
At that moment an unfamiliar voice rang through the cavern.
"Well now, today's catch is a peculiar one."
The center of the cavern, where the earthworm monster had crawled.
When Garam slowly raised his head and looked there.
there was a man.
A man draped in a black robe, fiddling with several Blood Point Stones in one hand.
"Hoo, you're really something. Normally a fellow would be so shocked he'd wet his trousers in a spot like this. And here you are checking your map for your position?"
And behind the man, countless corpses.
Every one of them had been left where it lay, shriveled dry like a mummy.
Yes, just like when he himself had absorbed blood.
Only then could Garam be certain.
'That bastard is the source of this case.'
Or at the very least, he was connected to it.
The odds that he was wrong?
He'd sooner win the lottery and die of a heart attack from the shock.
"So it's you? The bastard causing the abductions and scattering Blood Point Stones around."
"You mean these? Aye, that'd be me. But don't tell me you came here looking for me?"
To be precise, he had come looking for traces.
He hadn't expected to meet the man behind the case himself.
"Ha, so it's true. This is why I said we should have pulled out of here long ago. Those boys don't listen worth a damn."
The man snickered and rose from his seat.
SNAP!
He gave a light snap of his fingers.
"KIEEEEEEEK!"
With an ear-splitting shriek, something dropped from the cavern ceiling.
"KRRRRK."
A giant body slowly rising in the darkness.
A height of easily two meters.
Its build was comparable to the Kobold King's, but a closer look showed many differences.
If the Kobold King had been closer to a hulking pig, the Bat-Man was its opposite.
A gaunt body. Grotesquely long arms and legs.
And a bat-like face and wings.
And two eyes stained red.
"Ha, I had a bad feeling, and sure enough."
To think a Bat-Man with a Blood Point Stone driven into it would come out here.
And he was controlling that Bat-Man, on top of it?
"Listen here, boy. Normally we're supposed to keep you alive while we draw the blood out. But you've gone and seen us, so there's nothing to be done. Just die, would you."
The man sighed as though he genuinely pitied him.
"Glory to Lord Rumania."
The instant he murmured it low, the Bat-Man lunged at Garam.
CRASH—!
The Bat-Man leapt in an instant and swung its arm at him.
Though there was a considerable physical distance between them, the Bat-Man's attack reached him thanks to those deformed, overlong arms.
"Guh! I'm sick of getting hit first!"
Ever since he became a hunter, why did everything start with him getting smacked around?
This time it was his turn to throw the first punch.
[Lower Skill: Domination activates.]
[Target is weakened.]
VWEEEEEN!
Garam's axe began to glow white.
It was Cleaving Slash, the skill he had taken from the Kobold King.
A skill that simply raised the power of a slash, but.
CRUNCH!
The Bat-Man's arm already looked as if it would snap at a tap.
The axe Garam swung punched through hide that might as well not have been there and buried itself in the Bat-Man's bone.
"KIEEEEK!"
The Bat-Man thrashed wildly, apparently in pain.
"This isn't the end!"
FWOOSH!
"KIEK?"
Feeling something ominous in the sudden heat in its arm, the Bat-Man froze.
And then.
FWOOOOOSH!
Flames spread like a flood, melting flesh, hide, and bone.
And Garam's axe forced its way into the weakened gap.
"Hah!"
Along with acrid smoke, the Bat-Man's arm was severed and fell.
"KIRIK. KIRYAAAAAA!"
In evident agony, the Bat-Man looked back and forth between its severed arm and Garam, then let out a monstrous shriek.
"Whew. Bastard. Good thing its arms are thin. Otherwise I couldn't have taken it off in one hit."
Seriously lucky.......
"My, you fight well. Scratch at it like that and even a monster is bound to get scratched."
"Huh?"
"Reckon I'll lend it a little help."
The man threw the Blood Point Stone in his hand toward the Bat-Man.
Soon, as if resonating, the Blood Point Stone embedded in the Bat-Man's chest began to glow red, and it absorbed the other Blood Point Stone whole.
BULGE!
SWELL!
At the same time, the Bat-Man's muscles swelled as though it were being pumped full of steroids in real time.
Just moments ago it had been a brittle wafer that would snap at the slightest tap.
Now it had turned into a full-blown meathead.
"Fuck."
How am I supposed to kill that?