* * *
It wasn’t like my memory had blacked out, so the events of last night came back to me vividly.
For instance, how I had clung to him, begging him to let me come.
The more I remembered, the more mortified I felt, enough to want to close my eyes again.
But it was far too late to pretend to go back to sleep now.
I swallowed a quiet sigh and forced a nonchalant expression as I sat up.
Having stayed in the same position all night, my limbs were stiff and frozen, making even moving difficult.
“What time is it?”
I naturally put some distance between Do Soohyuk and myself, looking around for a clock.
Judging by the quiet outside, it seemed the dangerous peak had passed, but with no window, I couldn’t tell if it was daylight yet.
“The sun will be up soon.”
A low voice came from behind me then.
I glanced back to see Do Soohyuk pointing a finger at a clock hanging right above us.
7:15.
It was hanging there so obviously, yet I’d missed it.
How absurd.
Just like passing by a calendar in a convenience store without noticing, it seemed my innate carelessness applied in this world, too.
“⋯⋯.”
Speaking of which, Do Soohyuk looked remarkably intact for someone who had held me all night.
He’d been leaning against the wall, so his back must have been incredibly sore.
With that thought, my gaze drifted downward, and I jolted in surprise, quickly turning my head away.
Was I insane, really!?
I felt like smashing my head, which kept recalling last night’s events, against the wall.
As I was internally tearing my hair out, my eyes landed on an empty wine bottle placed beside him.
At a glance, its contents were clearly gone.
If my memory served me right, it had been more than half full before I fell asleep.
“Did we… really drink all of that?”
“Yes.”
“That’s weird. Why don’t I remember this time, either?”
“I woke you intermittently to have you drink. You were half-asleep, so you may not remember.”
My mouth fell slightly open at his words.
No wonder my head was still spinning…
The bonfire had long since died out, but there was a reason I was still breathing.
It seemed Do Soohyuk had tried to keep me from freezing to death, using his own body heat to warm me up while I slept.
All while he himself didn’t get a wink of sleep.
Because of me, he’d now spent two full nights awake.
“So…”
I needed to say thank you, but the timing felt far too awkward now.
It would sound like an acknowledgement of what happened last night.
Ultimately, I let my words trail off awkwardly, unnecessarily rubbing my forehead as I walked to the shutter door.
Peeking through a narrow gap, I saw the empty alley outside was now blanketed in white snow.
“What about the boss? Is it still nearby?”
“The sounds of its footsteps vanished three hours ago.”
“⋯⋯.”
So he had definitely stayed up all night.
Chewing on my lower lip guiltily, I watched as Do Soohyuk slowly rose to his feet.
Perhaps knowing he’d been up all night made his movements seem a little heavy.
“Outside… do you think a gate has appeared?”
If his prediction was correct, a gate should have opened by now at the end of the alley.
But even Do Soohyuk couldn’t know everything.
What if the clear condition wasn’t ‘survival’?
What if the condition was to kill the final boss?
Then we had no way of getting out of here alive.
We’d struggled against just one regular monster, a Yeti.
How could we possibly handle that?
Even if we were lucky and ‘survival’ was the correct condition, we couldn’t be sure a gate was open now.
If his prediction was wrong, we’d have to endure another day, and likely spend another night contemplating death.
Honestly, I didn’t have the confidence for that.
“Are you afraid?”
Perhaps my anxious thoughts showed on my face, as Do Soohyuk looked down at me quietly.
I couldn’t bring myself to answer and pressed my lips together firmly.
In response, he lowered his stance and reached for the shutter door.
Then, without a hint of hesitation, he pulled it open in one smooth motion.
It was the action of someone utterly certain.
Rumble-
“⋯⋯.”
The moment the door opened, a knife-like wind assaulted my entire body as if it had been waiting.
But I only hunched my shoulders for a second; the scene unfolding before my eyes was too captivating to look away.
A gate.
At the end of the alley, where the darkness hadn’t yet fully receded, a single gate was shimmering ethereally.
Seeing it emit a soft glow under the sky where the sun was just beginning to rise left me speechless.
How could I possibly describe this feeling?
Crunch.
A single footprint marked the pristine, untouched snow.
Do Soohyuk, who had stepped into the alley first, turned back and held out his hand.
He gestured with his chin as if to say, “Let’s go.”
As if bewitched, I took his hand and stepped forward.
As we neared the end of the alley, I instinctively scanned our surroundings, but the main road was desolately empty and silent.
Only two buildings, shattered and blackened in the distance, testified to yesterday’s events.
It was as if all the monsters had evaporated, like there had never been anyone here from the start.
We had truly cleared this insane dungeon.
Chirp!
Chirpy, who had crawled out of my clothes, seemed to sense the mood too.
He tugged at my hair, urging me to hurry.
He must have hated it here so much he was practically bouncing up and down.
“Alright, calm down!”
I said that, but my feelings weren’t much different from his.
I wanted to escape this dreadful place as soon as possible, even a second sooner.
The moment I collected my share of the reward items floating in the air, I grabbed Do Soohyuk’s arm and pulled him along.
In my impatience, my grip was a little too strong.
“Let’s get out of here.”
It was finally time to go home.
But the scene that greeted me outside the dungeon was completely different from what I’d expected.
“Wait, this is…”
I had hoped we wouldn’t end up in the middle of the ocean, but now that I saw where we were, drowning might’ve been preferable.
After a wave of nausea passed and my vision cleared, what came into view was… a massive crowd of people.
We were outside what looked like Langtou Airport, and dozens of people holding cameras turned to look at us all at once.
Their eyes were filled with disbelief and astonishment.
“They’re out!!”
One man, wearing a familiar hunter uniform, broke into a wide grin and dashed toward us.
He barreled through the crowd without hesitation, pushing past what looked like a group of Chinese reporters, who were no match for his strength and went tumbling over.
He didn’t seem to care and finally made it out, visibly excited and still pushing people aside.
Uh…
Real Korean, not some janky translator voice, rang out from the crowd, and I instinctively let go of Do Soohyuk’s hand.
I felt his gaze snap toward me, but I turned my head, pretending not to notice.
Now that I thought about it, there was no reason to keep holding hands—we were already out of the dungeon.
“I knew it! I was right!”
But that man wasn’t the only one who came through the crowd.
It wasn’t a train parade or anything, but at least dozens more followed behind him in a line.
They were all wearing hunter gear, and their identities were quickly revealed.
“Guild Master!”
The man who broke through first raised his eyebrows and approached Do Soohyuk without hesitation.
The only people who’d call him that were, of course, members of The One Guild.
But how did they even know to wait here?
As I’d said before, EX dungeons vanish upon entry, so no one knows where the exit will be.
They probably just guessed it might be near the last known location of the missing plane and came on a whim.
How could they know when we’d show up?
Even while watching that movie, I’d noticed just how loyal his people were to him.
“G-Guild Master… What the hell happened in there…?”
The guild member, looking Do Soohyuk up and down, went pale as if he were in shock.
Well, yeah—he used to come back from S-Class dungeons without a speck of dust on him.
Now look at him.
Though he wasn’t visibly injured, he was scorched in places and even stained with blood.
His face looked better than mine, but he still appeared disheveled, probably because we hadn’t had a proper chance to wash up.
This was probably the first time they’d seen him in such a mess.
“Hey! No pictures!”
Right then, the guild members who had scanned Do Soohyuk’s condition quickly moved to block the Chinese reporters.
One even snatched a camera and smashed it to pieces.
They were clearly determined to protect their guild master’s image, even if it meant getting a little aggressive with the press.
The reporters protested loudly, but the guild members didn’t even flinch.
Instead, one of them bit his lower lip and barked back at them with an air of righteous indignation.
“You think it’s okay to photograph an S-Class hunter from another country like this?! Huh? What happened to professional courtesy?!”
“I’m a Korean journalist, actually.”
“Still! No pictures!”
Honestly, the way they moved in perfect sync like this—just like back at the gate—it made me wonder if they had some kind of standard protocol for these situations.
Everyone moved as if rehearsed.
While I stood there stunned, one of the guild members cautiously approached Do Soohyuk, gauging his mood.
“Guild Master, are you alright? Should I wipe your face?”
“I’m fine. Is the private jet ready for departure?”
“Yes, of course!”
The guild member, who had started to pull a handkerchief from his pocket, scratched his head awkwardly at the firm rejection.
He turned to lead the way, but then hesitated and glanced at me.
“Um, by the way… Will Hunter Seo Inho be accompanying us as well?”
“……”
What’s that supposed to mean?
* * *
