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Siheung 8 Dungeon (4)

“Look over there!”

At that time, in front of the gate in Siheung. There was a great uproar between government officials and hunters who had gathered.

“There is a system message!”

Even an Awakened person couldn’t recognize real-time messages that could be heard inside when they were outside the gate. There were only a few simple lines of the notes available outside.

– Dungeon Information

1. Level: S
2. Maximum number of entrants: 40 (Current gate entrants: 39)
3. Clear conditions: Eliminate all monsters at the last stage of the dungeon
4. Time to evolve: Indefinite
5. Status: Very unstable (Clear complete)

Current entrants told how many of the people who had passed through this gate were still in the dungeon.

“It’s down to 39!”

The news that the remaining time until evolution had been changed to indefinite and that the phrase ‘Clear complete’ had been added to the dungeon state had been reported in almost real-time and delivered to the media. The country and the whole world were in a festive mood. Nearly all the press on Earth were reporting this as breaking news. Many people were wiping away their tears, too. All that was left was to wait for the Hunters who had completed the attack to return in triumph. Suddenly, news like a bolt from the blue sky spread.

“Who’s dead?”

“Send backup immediately!”

Quickly, a hunter on standby threw himself into the gate.

*

“It’s bad!”

At the same time. Similar disturbances occurred in front of the portal leading to the third stage of the dungeon. The festive mood cooled rapidly.

– This is the door to the third stage of the dungeon.

– Limited personnel: 3 persons (current portal entrants: 2 persons)

– Door closes when exposed to an unstable environment.

The portal’s system message was still displaying information limited to the third stage of the dungeon.

“Who’s dead?”

“Send telepathy to the Expedition Leader! You know how! A strong determination to ‘report’ Han-Seol in your head,”

“I’m already doing it. But there’s no answer,”

“She stamped the soldier class insignia on all of us just in case! Send telepathy to her all at once! Then she can’t miss it!”

“But she’s still not responding! It seems like Han-Seol is dead!”

The faces of the hunters turned pale. For now, an S-Rank Hunter jumped into the portal as the protocol discussed in advance. The rest of the hunters were thinking the same question in confusion.

“What happened?”

Was the dead person really Han-Seol? And if she died, how did she die right after the Clear was completed? These were questions that could not be resolved in the future where Choi Seung-Hyun lived.

“It’s sure that Han-Seol is dead. How else wouldn’t she respond to seventeen persons’ telepathy!”

Nobody guessed that the reason why Han-Seol connected the strings to all 17 Hunters was that it was an arrangement for her to later return safely to the second stage by following it in the fog.

*

‘Captain Han-Seol, if you’re alive, please respond! Captain Han-Seol!’

Han-Seol frowned because of the overlapping telepathy in her head.

‘I’ll have to turn it off for a while.’

In a way that only the operator of the skill and commander could, she maintained the connected strings but closed her mind for a while and locked them out. Then, in an instant, her head became calm and clear.

Ging!

After a while, one of the strings leading to the portal was slightly diverted. Then, a message rings that could only be heard in there came out loud.

– A new Awakened has entered stage three of the dungeon!

Han-Seol knew that this was a response to a predetermined protocol. But even if he came in, he wouldn’t be able to do anything in this fog. She had all the time in the world. This was because the only hunter who could see through the fog has already died. No one other than her, Han-Seol, removed that person with her own hands. She thought of the corpse lying around in her head—a terrible sight of one’s head blown off. Han-Seol then asked herself.

‘Why did I have to blow her head?’

Heart, or head. Mashing, one of the two, was the most efficient way to kill someone. However, it was a little hard to understand why she left her body there instead of burning it completely with a bit more effort. No, she may have tried to turn a blind eye not to accept the truth.

‘I smashed her head because I wanted that mouth of hers off.’

Those words Nicole Thompson whispered to Bill Russell that night. She remembered what she had said about Han-Seol. Every word was annoying.

‘Is that why I killed her?’

Pessimism and optimism mixed in her heart. The pessimistic voice was a little louder.

‘That’s not the reason.’

If Nicole Thompson was alive, there was a risk of being caught with whatever she would do from now on.

She said she needed another half an hour to avoid the shock, but only she knew how quickly she would recover. That was why she killed her. She decided to think so.

‘Anyway, I’m happy with the result. That’s enough.’

Whether others worshipped or condemned her actions, Han-Seol did not care about it.

‘I shouldn’t care.’

Though she needed to think her acceptance was the most important thing, she did not notice the contradiction in her thoughts.

‘Forget about everything else. It’s a small sacrifice for a great cause. Thompson’s death is a small sacrifice.’

Yes, a great cause. The cause was important. Han-Seol deliberately murmured with her voice.

“I saved people. I stopped the dungeon break,”

Inside, she swallowed the words that followed.

‘So I’m a great person.’

Han-Seol learned something a long time ago. In 2038, the Siheung 8 dungeon collapsed. No one found the gate because it spawned from a closed ventilation system under an apartment complex, and when it collapsed, it even had evolved into an SS-Class. When Han-Seol learned about the future, she was so terrified that she couldn’t drink or eat for a few days. This was because she had seen Han-Seol herself die in the future when the Dungeon Break swept Korea.

‘But I changed the future. I cleared the dungeon.’

It saved countless lives. Han-Seol herself escaped being swept away to death by the collapse of the dungeon.

She tried. She tried pretty hard. There was a reason why she participated the most in the exploration of the Siheung 8 dungeon among all the hunters in Korea. In the first place, the one that discovered this gate was a hunter under the Celestial Dragon who followed Han-Seol.

‘I changed my future, too.’

Instead, from now on, Han-Seol didn’t know how she would die.

‘I want to see more of the future. Now that I’ve changed past events, I want to see how this aftermath will be reflected in the future. I want to know what will happen to me after preventing the collapse of the Siheung 8 dungeon.’

Han-Seol had several secrets that most people didn’t know. One of them was her unique skill [Prophecy]. The skill’s existence had been confided to Seo Gyu-Cheol and Seo Jin-Wook, but she was the only one who knew exactly how it worked. For example, Seo Gyu-Cheol didn’t know. Borrowing his expression, the predictions that Han-Seol often received nowadays that ‘technically a prediction, but it was too far in the future that it was not beneficial’; it was actually made up and was not a real prediction.

‘I can’t see the future.’

It had already been three months since she last saw the future, ever since it had constantly decreased.

‘And so many things have changed since then.’

As a representative example, the person waiting in front of her with cold eyes did. The closer she approached, the clearer the shape of him in the fog became.

‘The suggestion to delay the Awakening was to check the reaction.’

After waking up after being unconscious, she heard that he was different than before, so she went and said that on purpose. If he were him in the past, he would have once again been at odds with Seo Gyu-Cheol following the words of Han-Seol. But he flatly refused. This was a thing that could not have happened before.

‘Why has he changed?’

Han-Seol stopped walking. The eyes of the two, close to each other, met. Han-Seol’s eyes clung to the man wearing Bill Russell’s shell. Her eyes were as damp as mist wrapped around her skin. She knew him from the moment she saw him. The change of emotion came sooner than recognition.

‘To think of it, he can flip through some people’s emotions.’

Seo Gyu-Cheol, who was always cold enough for people to think that he was emotionless, couldn’t hold back his anger towards Seo Jin-Wook’s things. Park Chang-Hee, who had a clear sense of reason and rationality, was particularly displeased and openly despised him. The same was true for Han-Seol herself.

‘When I get this close, I can’t understand why my feelings mess up that too like mud.’

So she could tell the real identity of the opponent. Although she usually hid it perfectly, she felt something like thread flowing back inside her heart when she approached him. But then, she felt the same thing when she was with a man named Bill Russell. It couldn’t be anyone else.

“Hi?”

Han-Seol greeted him.

“That’s a success. Good job, Jin-Wook.”

*

I glared at Han-Seol, who greeted me through the mist.

‘She’s showing her true colors. But how’d she know?’

I picked up the sword and aimed it at her.

‘I have to make her vomit all the information and then kill her. Especially on her relationship with Angelica!’

Han-Seol said, “Congratulations, we’ve changed the future. We saved the lives of countless people.”

I made myself stand up, with the senses of my whole body on alert, instead of answering. Yeah, go on and babble. All that you want. Say more.

“What are you doing?”

Han-Seol laughed as she held her sword, too.

“The plan has changed. I wanted to keep you in my heart for a long time. But I can’t anymore. I think we should end it here,”

The magic sword asked me as if she dumbfounded it.

‘What’s that crazy bitch talking about?’

I didn’t know, either.

‘Her eyes have completely turned. Hmm. But it’s not unfamiliar. I think I saw those eyes somewhere a long time ago… Oh, but aren’t you going to slice her? Are you going to keep listening? Oh, you need some information, don’t you?’

I saw a dangerous glow in the eyes of Han-Seol. Madness was not always expressed in violent and extreme ways. It was not common, but it was very quiet, it was gloomy, private, and such… Insanity existed. She let her voice out in a whisper-like tone.

“Listen to my story. Since I won’t be able to tell it to anyone from now on.”

No matter how hard I looked, she was out of her mind. The gap between the appearance that I had seen was so far that it was unfamiliar and creepy. Han-Seol smiled, slightly tilting her head. I asked her again.

“What are you planning?”

“I wanted to make you perfect for me. A puppet who only listens to me.”

For a moment, the skill came to mind, Angelica’s [Dominating Touch]. The hollow voice of Han-Seol continued.

“To see everyone as a potential traitor, to be cautious of them as they would seem like an enemy who will stab you on your back… But you would still listen to my words like a prophecy from God, into some kid like that.”

This woman. She had gone mad for good.

“I came to Celestial Dragon because I saw your future. Insanity-tainted, the best hunter in human history, do you understand? I tried to support you and be on your side, for you not to be faltered from that path. For you to escape from being uncontrolled to being the best hunter, to be your spiritual support. And I’ll make a colleague who fights for the world with me.”

I gritted my teeth. Several scenes from the memory of the original Seo Jin-Wook passed in my mind. It was all nonsense. I let out a cry immediately after, and some anger was mixed in, something that might not be entirely mine.

“You came to Celestial Dragon to support me? Bullshit. Then why did you sit by and watch over Seo Gyu-Cheol?”

And what was the purpose of the curse? The curse of leeching on the original Seo Jin-Wook fed on his anger. Seo Jin-Wook’s condition might have been better if he had been away from Seo Gyu-Cheol. Han-Seol replied in a tone that made it seem like my question was self-explanatory.

“Isn’t that obvious? So that Seo Gyu-Cheol and the people around you will make you feel hopeless, angry, and that you have nobody on your side. Then you will become more reliant on me.”

Upon hearing this, the magic sword began to mumble. ‘A good Hunter that escaped from being uncontrolled? So, in the end, that bitch wanted to make a chess pawn that only she could control. What’s the relationship between you two again?’

“But the plan has changed. I’ll take your life. It’s for a great cause. I’m sorry, Jin-Wook.”

Just then, another dungeon message rang out.

– Part of the weakened boundary of stage 3 of the dungeon has collapsed.

– Cause of boundary collapse: external entry.

It was the worst timing. Instead of listening more, I swung the sword at Han-Seol.

*

Crossing the boundaries of the dungeon was a being that had lived for a long time. Until then, in the dimension that resided, it had never been called with a proper noun. Everyone called it the emperor. The emperor was always looking for an opportunity to go beyond the dungeon’s boundaries to another level.

Back in the days, the life in the dimension that he reigned wasn’t bad either since every resident swore their loyalty to him. If it was desired, there was no reason for it to be impossible. If it was deemed necessary, it was put into action right away. It was literally like a living god. The decisive reason why the situation deteriorated was that its people… its species were unreasonably weak. The emperor murmured.

‘Too many have died.’

The tutorial was stopped at that dimension. Due to the system’s judgment, the minimum number of Awakened and civilized races that could continue was not secured. They couldn’t even climb the Tower of Choice. The tutorial stopped, and the dungeon no longer opened, but the opened dungeon did not close again. So the emperor decided to abandon this dimension. It had been a long time since he changed his race.

‘I could smell it.’

The thick fog did not cloud the emperor’s eyes. He had been living for a very long time now, and he had some tricks up his sleeves to counter this situation. He detected the surroundings without a sweat.

‘It’s best to find an Awakened that is fatigued from using almost all of its Mana. There must be a tired one right after the attack!’

What he was looking for was a weakened Awakened. And soon, he saw the most suitable target which met his eyes. Not only that, it had weakened, but the body had no way to fight back.

‘It’s a dead body. It’s incredibly fresh. It’s the best!’

A body was lying on the floor, a decapitated corpse. As the ends of all Awakened were the same, Mana core had already evaporated and disappeared. However, all it took was the traces of once having a core. This was so that it could change it to the spot. Furthermore…

‘This garment is from a highly developed civilization.’

Next, he looked inside the cold skin. He let out an exclamation.

‘A much better body than these scumbags around! A superior race!’

He unknowingly smiled. ‘The time has finally come to throw away this old body.’

As soon as he made up his mind, a light fog-like thing shot out of the emperor’s mouth. If Seo Jin-Wook had seen it, he would have recognized that substances similar to Mana cores were distributed in the form of gases in the organic fog. It was common for the Mana core form to change when the species changed. The mist seeped into the cut surface on the throat of the body, lying on the floor.

Then…

The body of an alien race that functioned as the emperor’s body until now fell on the floor. The body, which could be called the real emperor, was now infiltrated inside the decapitated body.

‘Starting with the core!’

A fog-shaped core found its place in the heart of the body. Then, the core was newly formed along the remaining traces. Soon, the cold and hardened heart started to beat again. Mana began to fill her body as it made different from the previous owner. The emperor, who took control of the body, calmly analyzed the gene sequence.

‘It may have died here alone, but you may have been a fellow species who witnessed it. I’ll have a problem if I get back out alive. I’d better change my appearance moderately.’

However, it was unclear how many changes should be made because it was not yet fully familiar with the species. A drastic change could have made it beyond their cognizance of kinship.

‘Let’s keep the changes to a minimum.’

The information stored in the gene sequence decides to retain their hair, eye color, and skin color intact as it did that.

Gooooooooooooooooooo!

The cutthroat swells up flesh, veins, nerves, and bones. Soon, the sliced surface disappeared neatly, and the blown-up head was formed again. The body that rose from its seat began to breathe.

‘Good, very good.’

A perfect regeneration. It looked around and smiled satisfactorily. As she returned to life, she looked across the mist in a face that looked like hers, but still a little different.