What kind of bullshit was this now?
The instant the question formed, a flood of memories poured into Kang-hyeok's mind.
"......"
Kang-hyeok slowly pushed himself up and let out a small, dry laugh.
"So I really was reincarnated?"
His eyes gradually flushed a deep red.
Then he lightly leveled his gaze at the Dullahan bearing down on him.
-......!
Flinch!
The Dullahan faltered at the look in Kang-hyeok's eyes.
"Status."
[Status]
Name: Park Kang-hyeok (Cain)
Race: Dragon-Demonkin
Title: Heavenly Demon God
LV: 1219
Strength: 214
Agility: 253
Vitality: 800
Mana: 247,493,160
AP: 0
Skills: Lowest-Grade Homunculus Summon (LV.18), Swordsman (LV.15), Rice Summon (LV.12), Inner Core Summon (LV.12), Lowest-Grade Skeleton Summon (LV.1)
Help available
"Stats and skill levels are the same as before."
The catch was the number of Homunculi he could summon.
He could call up to a hundred million, but roughly eighty-two million were already summoned, leaving only about eighteen million he could still call forth.
Right now, Earth was linked to several dimensions.
Which meant the world of his past life was just one of those countless dimensions.
The same would go for the Earth of the life before that.
Kang-hyeok slowly rose to his feet.
"......The internal damage is bad."
On top of that, his left arm was gone.
Klik!
By now the Dullahans had gathered around him.
"Get lost."
Thoom—!
At the immense mana Kang-hyeok unleashed, the Dullahans and Liches — and even the Death Knight — stared at him as if seized by terror.
Kang-hyeok used the brief moment the undead froze to pick up the blade lying on the ground.
"I'll be taking my leave now. Let me out quietly, and I won't kill you."
-D-Don't make me laugh! A mere human......!
"......Human?"
Last he checked, it had been over ten thousand years since he'd stopped being human.
Kang-hyeok gave a soft chuckle and closed the distance to the Death Knight in an instant.
Slash—!
"Then you'll die."
-......!
The Death Knight's whole body locked up at Kang-hyeok, suddenly right before its eyes.
When had he closed the distance?
Just as the Death Knight twitched its fingers—
Its field of vision began to slowly rotate.
-What......
Kang-hyeok looked down at the Death Knight with a cold face.
"I told you it would've been easier to just let me out......"
Ding!
A notification popped up before him, announcing the dungeon boss had fallen.
Kang-hyeok let out a sigh and turned his head.
And then......
Fwip!
He vanished from where he stood and began tearing the Dullahans and Liches apart.
Krak! Ka-ka-ka-krak!
The undead's heads shot up into the air.
The survivors watching could only stare in shock.
A man who had been nothing but a porter was destroying high-tier undead one after another.
Lee Seong-ho especially, having lost one leg, watched Kang-hyeok and let his disbelief show.
"N-No way. H-How is that guy......!"
More than the fact that he'd survived, it was Kang-hyeok's raw power that stunned him, and he gritted his teeth.
Yu-jin, who had lost both arms, and Ji-hye, who had lost one, watched Kang-hyeok with tears streaming down their faces.
He was their savior, the one who had rescued them from a hell of suffering.
At the same time, some of the Hunters were left wondering.
Why had a man with power like that volunteered to be a porter?
And why hadn't he revealed his ability sooner?
Having wiped out the Dullahans and Liches, Kang-hyeok halted and slowly walked over to Su-chan.
"......"
Jeong Su-chan, who had worked as a porter alongside him, lay sprawled on the ground, a cold corpse.
Kang-hyeok quietly closed his eyes and offered a silent prayer.
"H-He's alive."
"H-Haha......"
Six Hunters had survived, and only three porters, Kang-hyeok included.
"Wh-Why were you hiding your power?! If you'd used it just a little sooner......!"
At Seong-ho's shout, all the Hunters nodded along.
Even Ji-hye and Yu-jin, who had looked at Kang-hyeok like a savior, changed the look in their eyes.
"Th-That's right! If you'd cut down the Death Knight the moment it appeared, we could have saved more lives......!"
"Wh-Why were you hiding your power......!"
Kang-hyeok narrowed his eyes with displeasure and glared at the survivors.
"I wasn't hiding anything. Re-Awakened...... would be the accurate way to put it. And in the first place, I entered as a porter. I was never obliged to fight the monsters alongside you, was I?"
"Th-That's......"
"As you can see, I lost my left arm too. I've no intention of standing here listening to your bullshit any longer, so the rest is on you to handle."
Kang-hyeok summoned a single skeleton to gather up Su-chan's remains.
Su-chan's body was cradled in the skeleton's two hands.
"Oh, and."
Kang-hyeok stepped over to the Death Knight's corpse and recovered its Mana Stone.
Then, after collecting the Mana Stones from the surrounding Dullahans and Liches as well, he started for the exit.
The Hunters and porters stared at him in bewilderment.
"Wh-Where are you going?!"
"You have to take us too......!"
"You're just going to leave us to die?!"
Ignoring the shouts of Seong-ho and the Hunters, Kang-hyeok walked out of the boss room.
The boss, the Death Knight, had been slain, so he had to hurry out of the dungeon within twenty-four hours.
The moment he cleared the boss room, Kang-hyeok strode briskly through the cave with his skeleton.
'The map's useless now. It said the structure changed.'
For now, he'd have to follow wherever the paths led.
As he went, he recovered the pack and rations he'd flung aside.
CRASH!
The skeletons were destroyed in an instant.
Walking through the cave, Kang-hyeok began sorting through the memories of his past life once more.
He had originally lived on Earth, lost his life young, and been reborn anew in another world.
In a fantasy-styled world, he'd built a nation-scale organization called the Heavenly Demon God Cult, slain Demon Kings and Dragons to rise as an absolute being, and in the end been hailed as the Heavenly Demon God.
After fathering close to thirty children with thirteen wives known as the Divine Empresses, he had watched over countless descendants and enjoyed a full ten thousand years as the Heavenly Demon God before his life came to an end.
The Half-Demon Elixir that turned a person into a Half-Demon.
And the Dragonkin Elixir that turned one into Dragonkin.
Perhaps because he had taken both elixirs and raised his cultivation to the level of a highest-grade Grandmaster?
His lifespan had stretched to over ten thousand years.
'I never imagined I'd actually live more than ten thousand years, though......'
His wives had all reached the ends of their lifespans and passed before him.
The images of Alice, the First Divine Empress with black hair and red eyes, and Hwaryeon, the Third Divine Empress, who had stayed with him nearly to the very end, still lingered in his mind.
"Haah......"
Living precisely ten thousand years, he had completed the hidden quest, 'Reincarnation.'
He'd seen the line about being revived in a new dimension after death, but......
To think he'd actually come back to life.
And on Earth, no less.
"Not the Earth I knew, though......"
On the Earth of his life before last, there had been no Hunters and no monsters.
'This time it's a modern-fantasy setting, then.'
Should he build the Heavenly Demon God Cult all over again?
'No......'
A criminal organization in China was already using the name of the Heavenly Demon God Cult.
And apparently many of China's guilds operated under the names of the various sects from wuxia novels.
"First, let's earn some money."
Having enjoyed everything there was in his past life, he had few regrets.
But in this life, there was much he still lacked.
His parents in this life ran a hardware store in a place once designated a danger zone.
His younger sister would soon enter university.
First, he had to change his family's lives.
"......Back to the same spot."
Kang-hyeok had left an X mark at every passage.
Whenever he came back around to the start, he took a different passage and searched for the Gate.
He had to get out before the dungeon's structure shifted again.
"If it changes, I'll have to start the search all over."
Kang-hyeok clicked his tongue softly as he looked at his severed left arm.
His internal organs were badly damaged too.
"The potions piled up in the basement of the Heavenly Demon God Palace always felt like they'd be there for granted......"
Right now, he'd give anything for a single one of them.
Regenerating his left arm would require a highest-grade potion.
'The moment I'm out, I'll update my rank and make some money.'
Highest-grade potions came up at auction periodically.
Anywhere from ten billion to as much as eighty billion won.
Winning bids varied, but on average they held around thirty to forty billion won.
For E-rank Hunter Park Kang-hyeok, it was money he couldn't have earned in a lifetime.
But for Cain, the Heavenly Demon God, it was a different story.
A few tens of billions of won he could pull together within a month, if he was quick.
CRASH!
-......
A Dullahan slammed into a wall.
Kang-hyeok recovered its Mana Stone and stowed it in his pack.
Heavenly Demon God or not, living out his days in a place like this was impossible.
What was he supposed to eat, in a place crawling with undead?
He at least needed a minimum of food.
'Don't tell me I really can't get out......'
The unease slowly rising within him was soon quelled.
"Ah......"
Because a Gate had appeared before his eyes.
Fwip!
Kang-hyeok quickly ran toward the Gate.
The moment he threw himself into it, his surroundings began to shift in an instant.
A vast clearing opened up before him.
The area around it was walled off by high concrete barriers.
"Haah......"
He was finally back.
Kang-hyeok quietly breathed a sigh of relief.
A short while later, the Gate manager who had spotted Kang-hyeok on the CCTV came rushing over.
"Y-You're back already?"
Kang-hyeok shook his head with a grave expression.
"For now, I was the only one who made it out."
"What? What do you mean......"
Kang-hyeok explained the situation inside the dungeon.
At the death of S2-rank Hunter Yu Chan-seok, the manager could only stare in shock.
An S-rank monster, a Death Knight, appearing in a place known as a B-grade dungeon?!
"I-I'll contact Teinen Guild and the Association at once! Please wait a moment!"
"I'm sorry to ask, but...... could I get a potion?"
"Ah......!"
Only then did the manager take in the state Kang-hyeok was in.
Even at a glance, his whole body was a wreck.
"If a spare lowest-grade potion will do......"
"Yes, even that, please."
The manager nodded and hurried off.
After contacting Teinen Guild and the Hunter Association, the manager rushed back to Kang-hyeok clutching a single lowest-grade potion.
Kang-hyeok downed it at once.
Gulp.
A lowest-grade potion could do little more than staunch the bleeding.
Recovering from internal injuries would be beyond it.
Still, it would have to serve as basic first aid.
While Kang-hyeok sat on the ground to rest, the skeleton slowly laid Su-chan's remains down.
A short while later, Teinen Guild's staff and Hunters came pouring in.
"Wh-What in the world happened?! Is it true that Hunter Yu Chan-seok is dead?"
At the question from Lee Su-jin, a black-haired woman and S2-rank Hunter of Teinen Guild, the Gate manager pointed a finger at Kang-hyeok.
"You'll want to hear the details from him......"
Su-jin nodded and hurried over to Kang-hyeok.