* * *
Doyoung stared at Yeo Giwon in disbelief.
“Aren’t you the one who was against me dating Beom Sinje?”
“Huh? Not really. I was just pissed that you two always left me out of your conversations.”
Yeo Giwon even pouted, looking like a sulking child.
“You didn’t just save Beom Sinje, hyung. You saved me too, remember? Back at the fight arena. So why is it just the two of you acting all special?”
“Because I was more special.”
Beom Sinje immediately retorted.
“What’s so special about you? You just got picked up and brought home. I was rescued from a fighting arena. If anything, that makes me the special one.”
The conversation was rapidly devolving into childish bickering.
“No, it doesn’t.”
“What do you mean, no?!”
“I was the one who called him.”
“…What?”
Yeo Giwon looked baffled, but Doyoung immediately understood what Beom Sinje meant.
“Enough. Stop arguing like kids over who’s more loved.”
The last thing he needed was for the discussion to escalate into other inconvenient truths—like how he came from another world.
So he pretended to break them up while shooting Beom Sinje a look that clearly meant, ‘Keep your mouth shut.’
“Anyway, this isn’t happening.”
He shut down the ridiculous plan once again.
“But hyung, you did say you’d help me.”
“Hey! That and this are two entirely different things!”
“From what I can see, this is the surest way. The reason Antithesis even existed, the real reason you did all of that—it all ties back to this, doesn’t it?”
Beom Sinje held his gaze as if daring him to deny it.
And honestly… he couldn’t.
Because it was true.
From the moment he arrived here, his goal had been to help Beom Sinje.
‘But back then, I just wanted to survive long enough to reach the ending safely.’
After that, he’d planned to settle down somewhere quiet with plenty of money.
A peaceful life.
But now, with Beom Sinje looking at him like that, there was no way he could tell him the truth.
How was he supposed to say, ‘I did it because you were a threat to my life’ to someone who claimed to love him?
“That’s… not the point.”
The moment Doyoung hesitated, a deeper smile crept onto Beom Sinje’s lips.
And at that moment, Doyoung knew.
He was going to lose this fight.
◇◆◇◆◇
The public never got a moment’s rest from all the breaking news surrounding Chunho Guild.
The speculation that Antithesis’s former leader had returned.
The shocking revelation of who the guild leader was dating.
And the fact that said lover turned out to be none other than his secretary—the same person who had recently caused a stir online.
[ I still can’t believe it… So Zero was Guild Leader Beom’s mysterious “Hyung” this whole time?! And what we saw was just a wholesome soft moment all along???
└ ‘Wholesome soft moment’ LOL… That does seem like the truth, but why does it feel so weird??? I can’t picture Guild Leader Beom as a cute little kid.
└ Same 😂😂 How is that fully-formed final boss of a man supposed to have ever been a child?!
└ I heard they met as adults, so the earlier posts were wrong~~~~~
└ I don’t care when they met, I just want a boyfriend like that ♥
└ SAME. The Antithesis boss really went above and beyond for love… He literally forced a government agency to create a private guild just so his lover could have a smoother path in life… ]
And when it was revealed that Doyoung had actually fought against government officials because of Beom Sinje, the internet exploded.
Chunho Guild fanned the flames even further, releasing records proving that every dungeon Antithesis had cleared had been ones mismanaged by corrupt bureaucrats—ones that could have caused massive casualties if left unchecked.
Then they put the final nail in the coffin by exposing the names of those corrupt officials.
A few days later, yet another announcement shook the world.
The Dungeon Ecology Research Institute—no, terrorists—operating across multiple countries was made public.
And guilds worldwide had already begun hunting them down.
◇◆◇◆◇
“This is ridiculous…”
Daiken clutched his face in despair, letting out a hopeless groan.
“Johan, we can’t just end it like this. Do something!”
He turned sharply to the side.
Johan, his face frozen with tension, kept his gaze locked on the laptop screen.
He didn’t seem to hear a word of Daiken’s whining.
A news broadcast played on the screen.
It reported that while an accident had occurred during the Guild’s large-scale search of the Dungeon Ecology Research Institute in Korea, fortunately, there were no significant casualties.
“How did they find out? How…”
Everything had been proceeding according to plan.
When their most critical operation—their expansion into Korea—succeeded, he had finally been certain that they were ready to execute their true ambitions.
That place was deeply significant to their allies as well.
They had managed to establish themselves in the very country that had humiliated them a decade ago.
And more than that, they had even secured an official research institute under the government’s nose.
It had been their chance to exact revenge for the past.
“Is that really what matters right now? You should be telling me what we’re going to do next!”
Every day, the internet and news channels buzzed with reports of terrorists linked to dungeon ecology research institutes being captured across the globe.
Guilds everywhere had seemingly made it their mission to hunt them down, and now, only a handful of their allies remained.
Even he and Johan had barely managed to escape to Spain before getting caught up in the dragnet.
The only reason they hadn’t been discovered at the airport was sheer luck.
But who knew how long that luck would last?
After all, their identities had already been exposed.
“Damn it, if I had known this would happen, I would’ve just stayed in Africa!”
At least there, he wouldn’t have to live with this constant sense of dread.
The region’s vast, sparsely populated lands and limited resources made law enforcement lax—it was the perfect place to disappear.
Besides, it was his homeland. There would have been no problem at all.
“I should never have followed you to Korea…”
Johan, who had remained unresponsive to Daiken’s continued grumbling, finally turned to him at the mention of Korea.
His eyes were darker than usual.
For a brief moment, Daiken averted his gaze.
Despite Johan not being a combatant, his skill with computers was nothing short of extraordinary.
Hadn’t he once dreamed of becoming an engineer?
“That place was a strategic stronghold for us. It contained invaluable information. We couldn’t just give it up so easily.”
Every piece of technology integrated into the research institute had been Johan’s doing.
It only made sense that he had to be the one to oversee its complete shutdown.
But even so, had they really needed to provoke their enemies to this extent?
“I get that, but what good does it do now? We can’t use that place anymore. Worse yet, we didn’t even manage to cripple Chunho. All we did was poke a sleeping beast!”
That was the real problem.
The moment Chunho made their public announcement, guilds from various countries sprang into action like they had been waiting for this.
And from that point on, their allies had been captured one after another, completely helpless.
“So then… how the hell…”
They had erased every trace.
Or so they thought.
Where had they slipped up?
* * *
