“Get up. We have to go catch the boss.”
The voice falling from above was disgustingly refreshing.
Yigyul, sprawled on the floor, looked up at Seong Yohan, who was smiling brightly down at him.
‘You crazy bastard…’
He bit his lip to swallow the curses threatening to spill out.
He wanted to land a satisfying punch on that smooth, handsome face, but right now, he didn’t have the strength to wiggle a finger.
As he struggled to push himself up, Yohan extended a hand as if doing him a great favor.
“Take it.”
“…Get lost.”
Yigyul avoided the hand.
He couldn’t stand that divine power pouring out of him with just a touch.
At Yigyul’s blatant rejection, Yohan made an “oops” expression and slowly withdrew his hand.
“It seems you’re still in pain?”
“I wonder whose fault that is.”
Yigyul leaned against the wall and groaned, barely managing to stand.
His legs were shaking, but his body was rapidly returning to its normal state.
Yohan scanned him with eyes full of curiosity.
“You’re an unregistered hunter, aren’t you?”
He’d been asking that tirelessly.
“How many times do I have to tell you I’m C-class before you actually listen? Does my voice just go in one ear and out the other?”
“I know for a fact you aren’t. Because you don’t avoid my eyes.”
Yohan took a step closer. His dark pupils dug into Yigyul’s eyes with obsession.
Yigyul found it absurd. Yohan looked straight at him and spoke.
“Usually, people tend to avoid them. Eyes imbued with divine power dig into a person’s soul like they’re imbued with magic. As if they’re going to unearth everything in your head.”
“…Crazy bastard.”
Yohan gave a strange smile.
Yigyul let out a hollow laugh, baffled.
“What, do you think you’re some kind of omnipotent god? ‘Because you don’t avoid my eyes’… Give me a break.”
Yigyul glared at him as if he were talking nonsense and walked past.
Yohan didn’t say more, simply shrugging his shoulders.
It was then.
Kisha-aaaack!!
With a piercing screech, something lunged out from the darkness at the end of the corridor.
A doll dressed in a black maid outfit. Its joints were twisted grotesquely, and it held a kitchen knife in its hand—a ‘Cursed Maid.’
It was a monster contaminated by demonic aura, possessing ferocity beyond B-class.
Their reactions were simultaneous.
Yohan gracefully extended his hand.
“Chains of—!”
Kwa-aaaang!!
It was before Yohan could even activate his skill.
Yigyul, with his hands still in his pockets, lazily lashed out with his foot. It looked like a light kick, but the result was horrific.
The lunging maid doll flew back like a cannonball and smashed into the wall.
Kugugugu—!
The bricks crumbled, and dust billowed up.
The doll couldn’t even scream before it was folded in half and buried inside the wall.
The white chains stretching from Yohan’s fingertips lost their target and fell limply into the air.
“……”
“……”
A brief silence followed.
As the dust settled, Yohan slowly turned his head to look at Yigyul.
The corner of his mouth twitched upward.
“A C-class hunter, you say?”
Yigyul met his gaze with a look that said ‘So what? Why? What are you going to do about it?’
Honestly, he felt a bit of an “oops” internally.
His reflexes had become quite sharp as his body recovered.
Well, they were sharp before, too. But the milk was already spilled.
Yigyul decided to be even more shameless.
“Oh dear, I was so startled my foot slipped. Why? What? You got a problem?”
“Your foot slips and you manage to taxidermy a monster into a wall?”
“I guess I got lucky.”
Yigyul glared fiercely at Yohan.
He looked ready to throw a punch if questioned further.
Yohan looked incredulous for a moment, but soon smirked and summoned his Chains of Judgment again.
“Fine. My very lucky C-class hunter. I’ll look forward to your next stroke of luck then.”
Kieeeek! Kishaaaak!
Beyond the broken wall, and from the ceiling and floor, dozens of maid dolls began to pour out.
Every single one had bloodshot eyes—enhanced specimens.
“They’re coming.”
Yigyul muttered briefly and shifted his stance.
The battle began.
Clang! Ka-chang!
Yohan’s chains danced through the air, pulverizing the dolls.
Wherever the light touched, the monsters vanished with screams.
It was overwhelming martial might.
Yigyul moved sluggishly amidst the chaos.
Kieeeek!
One maid doll tried to plunge its knife into Yigyul but hesitated mid-air.
Its red eyes shook as if it were terrified upon seeing him.
‘…It caught the scent.’
The fragment embedded in Yigyul’s body.
It was a fragment of the Demon King obtained from the Gate of Reverse Heaven.
The ‘Fragment of Beelzebub.’
Thump—
Yigyul placed a hand near his heart.
He felt a foul sensation, as if the fragment were reacting to its subordinates.
‘Annoying.’
Since it was a fragment of the Demon King, low-level monsters couldn’t dare to challenge its hierarchy.
The monsters instinctively avoided Yigyul and swarmed toward Yohan instead.
Thanks to that, Yigyul could comfortably observe the battlefield, only occasionally knocking away the few witless ones that got too close.
‘That guy… he really can fight.’
Yohan was performing a literal massacre.
They called him an S-class Paladin? Or an Exorcist?
Either way, B-class contaminated monsters were no match for someone who wielded divine power.
Fwaaaa—!!
A massive burst of divine power from Yohan’s hand swallowed the hall.
A light so brilliant it was blinding.
The moment he saw that light, Yigyul instinctively swallowed hard.
He was somewhat used to it now; his body no longer stung from that light.
‘…Looks delicious.’
It was a crazy thought.
But his body remembered.
The drug-like peace that had followed the agonizing pain just a while ago.
The sensation of the hundred-year-old curse going quiet for even a brief moment.
‘If I just have a little more of that…’
Yigyul stared at Yohan as if possessed before quickly shaking his head.
‘No. Snap out of it.’
That was no different from a drug.
He had his honey water.
Grandma Oksun’s voice flickered through his mind.
‘Honey water is just a temporary fix.’
‘Grandma.’
‘This can’t solve your fundamental problem.’
‘Then what am I supposed to do?’
‘If you don’t want to die, go get treated, you brat.’
‘Where would I even find someone like that, Grandma?’
‘They’ll be out there somewhere. Someone to treat you.’
He remembered his grandmother’s words as she clicked her tongue coldly.
She said honey water couldn’t fully purify him.
She said… if he just endured with it, he’d eventually die.
Yigyul had lamented.
‘Grandma, there’s no one to treat me. Where would a person like that be?’
‘They’ll be somewhere in this world, someone to treat our pretty Yigyul.’
‘Do you know you’re the only person who calls me pretty?’
‘Will I be the only one? There will be someone else who thinks our Yigyul is pretty. I guarantee it.’
Even as she said that, Grandma Oksun would smile warmly, stroking his cheek with her wrinkled hand.
He suddenly missed her terribly.
Yigyul clicked his tongue.
‘Why am I thinking about the old lady all of a sudden? Dammit.’
To shake off the thoughts, Yigyul crushed the head of a monster in front of him.
Puck!
“Whew…”
The battle ended.
The floor was covered in the remains of the dolls.
Yohan adjusted his gloves without his breathing even being disturbed.
“He’s not here.”
Even after checking all the rooms in the castle, Kang Yeongwon was nowhere to be found.
Yohan surveyed the empty room and spoke.
“We’ve searched all the rooms on this floor, but the boy is not here.”
Yigyul also frowned. Kang Yeongwon.
Where the hell was that brat hiding?
Not even a hair of him was visible.
“Why the hell did he enter a dungeon anyway?”
“Don’t you know?”
Yohan glanced at Yigyul.
“Know what?”
“The reason a non-Awakened tries to enter a dungeon is obvious.”
“…He wanted to Awaken?”
“What else could it be? Believing the superstition that Awakening happens in a moment of crisis and doing something reckless.”
“Ha, unbelievable.”
Yigyul ran a hand through his hair in exasperation.
“You’re supposed to be Rank 1. In that position, can’t you even get one kid to Awaken? I heard there are programs nowadays that safely induce Awakening if you just pay enough.”
“I didn’t do it because there was no need for him to Awaken.”
Yohan said flatly. His tone was cold.
“And his sister would never have allowed it anyway.”
“Sister? He had a sister?”
Yigyul asked. Yohan’s expression sank strangely.
“What was the sister doing, just leaving the kid like that?”
“She’s dead.”
Yigyul shut his mouth.
He felt more and more like trash.
No, he was trash.
Yigyul wanted to stitch his own mouth shut. Yohan continued.
“Kang Yeongeum.”
Those three syllables came from Yohan’s lips.
Yigyul’s footsteps came to a dead stop. It felt like his heart had dropped into his stomach.
“……What?”
“That is his sister’s name. One of the heroes who entered the Gate of Reverse Heaven as an ‘Apostle’ nine years ago.”
