* * *
His reaction was markedly different from before.
Seo Jaewon struggled to keep his voice cold as he continued.
“Is there any beauty in an Esper who kills his own comrades?”
“Even if it’s not killing, but just letting them die?”
Seo Jaewon suppressed the anger rising in his chest.
Even as this guy spewed nonsense, time was ticking away.
But if he gave in to impatience and fury, it would be his defeat.
“Are you saying you can’t do it? Why should I be the exclusive Guide for an incompetent Esper?”
“That’s an unexpected thing to say. I don’t know if I should say it’s like you or not like you at all…….”
Joo Youngha laughed low as he spoke.
‘You can laugh right now……?’
It was a reaction that made absolutely no sense.
However, the fact that he was reacting at all meant it was a gamble worth taking.
Seo Jaewon drove the point home one last time.
“……Anyway, I have no intention of sticking around with a guy like that. I’d rather quit being a Guide altogether.”
Joo Youngha stared blankly at Seo Jaewon before letting out a dissatisfied sigh.
“Eiii…….”
Eiii? Eiii……?! Is that all the reaction I get?!
“I guess I have no choice.”
Joo Youngha tilted his head slightly with a much more sullen expression.
With just that movement, life seemed to breathe back into the marble-like, dry work of art, and he suddenly became the familiar face again.
“Since it seems these things are important to you.”
Joo Youngha lightly flicked his finger toward Min Yoomin, who was drifting in the water.
Min Yoomin’s body was pulled by the gravitational force and slowly approached them.
Seo Jaewon desperately reached his arm out of the air bubble, grabbing Min Yoomin and pulling him in.
His fingers felt like they were freezing in the ice-cold water.
“Guide Min Yoomin!”
With a splash, Min Yoomin’s body was hauled into the air.
The falling water naturally seeped into the boundary between the water and air and vanished.
At the same time, the inside of the air bubble expanded slightly.
“Guide Min Yoomin, wake up!”
Seo Jaewon quickly flipped Min Yoomin over and checked his breathing.
His body hung limp as he was shaken, and no breath could be felt.
In the dark, pale blue gloom, his white face stood out as wanly as a corpse.
‘Please, please……!’
As he opened Min Yoomin’s jaw to perform rescue breathing, the man let out a wet cough.
“Kehek, cough.”
“Are you conscious?!”
Without waiting for an answer, Seo Jaewon flipped him around to check his condition.
Aside from water streaming out of his mouth and a minor wound on the back of his head, he seemed okay.
Though secondary issues like a concussion remained a possibility.
“Hyung? What on earth happened…….”
Min Yoomin asked, gasping for breath.
He still seemed dazed, but his eyes were focused.
“He’s still alive.”
Seo Jaewon ignored Joo Youngha’s small grumble.
“The dungeon is submerged. It seems to be part of the gimmick.”
“What about the others?!”
“……I haven’t found them yet. They’re Espers, so they’ll hold out for a while, but still.”
Even for an Esper, surviving in this environment would not be easy.
It was freezing, pitch-black water filled with dangerous floating debris.
Min Yoomin had simply been lucky; if he had been swept away by the current along with sharp wreckage, it would have been the end.
Moreover, no matter how strong a person was, they would eventually suffocate without oxygen.
The same applied to the three of them here.
As Joo Youngha said, they couldn’t hold out forever.
“I was near Saul and tried to grab him, but I missed. If only I had been a little faster…….”
Min Yoomin said, coughing while lying down. Seo Jaewon quickly cut him off.
“No, that’s not your fault, Guide. Rather, we are the ones who should protect you.”
“But Hyung is a Guide too.”
Ah, right. Seo Jaewon forced the corners of his mouth up into a smile.
“I’m the team leader, aren’t I?”
‘Think. What should I do?’
The interior of the dungeon was too vast to wander aimlessly looking for comrades.
Furthermore, he felt that if they went just a little deeper, they would be able to see nothing at all.
‘Should I have him pull everything in with telekinesis? No, the consumption would be too high.’
“Don’t say such cool things. In movies, if you do that, it always…….”
Min Yoomin laughed with an anxious face, saying something unnecessarily ominous.
His soft, curving eyes sparkled strangely.
‘His eyes are brown,’ Seo Jaewon thought suddenly.
Wait, sparkled?
Seo Jaewon whipped his head around.
Looking up, there was a small, faint light source.
It was subtle enough that its shape was hard to discern, but it was a definite light.
It was clear enough that the murky turquoise darkness became transparent wherever the light reached.
“What is that…….”
The light flickered as if tempting him.
While he observed without even breathing, a distinct form slowly emerged to his eyes as they adjusted to the light.
A decahedron-shaped luminary.
It felt like an uncomfortable energy, similar yet different from an Esper’s, like stroking hair in the wrong direction.
Small sparks snapped and popped from the glowing surface where massive power was condensed.
‘It’s the core.’
If he could just get his hands on that, everything would be over.
A dungeon that loses its core immediately decomposes and spits out beings that don’t belong to it—provided they are still alive.
I can save my comrades. I can end this without losing anyone.
Seo Jaewon instinctively reached out toward the light with all his strength.
The light felt very close, flickering and seemingly drawing nearer as if reacting to him.
Tears welled in his eyes from the increasingly intense light.
“Using a shallow trick…….”
Joo Youngha’s cold voice reached Seo Jaewon’s consciousness.
At that moment, with a sensation like someone grabbing the scruff of his neck, the ground beneath his feet jolted.
“……?!”
Startled, Seo Jaewon grabbed Joo Youngha’s arm.
Joo Youngha naturally pulled Seo Jaewon into a back hug to hold him steady.
Min Yoomin screamed as he rolled across the floor.
Joo Youngha had suddenly moved the air bubble they were in.
Once the distance widened, Seo Jaewon could see the situation clearly.
“That’s……!”
Beneath the blue-white burning light of the core, hollow silver eyes flashed.
Below those were massive lips and protruding teeth.
A giant body covered in mucus and murky fins like rotten pond moss.
The core was dangling from the end of a tentacle-like appendage growing from the giant beast’s forehead.
An anglerfish……?
The monster opened its massive maw toward them.
The cavernous mouth filled his vision in an instant.
Inside the mouth, where pieces of flesh of unknown function dangled, glowing spots were scattered.
‘It looks like outer space…….’
That thought crossed his mind for a moment, but primal fear quickly took over.
“Aaaah!”
Min Yoomin shrieked and huddled against Seo Jaewon.
“So noisy…….”
Joo Youngha was not shaken at all by the giant fish in front of him.
When he lightly snapped his fingers, a short, powerful pulse of energy radiated outside the air bubble.
TJEONG—!
Seo Jaewon instinctively covered his ears.
Even inside the air bubble, the vibration was enough to make his eardrums sting.
Countless bubbles rose like a blizzard, momentarily obscuring his vision.
The fish’s entire body flashed like a neon sign from the impact.
It was a tremendous shockwave.
The fish circled around irritably and attempted to swallow them a few more times.
But each time, it was simply repelled by Joo Youngha.
Seeing him toy with the giant fish with just a flick of his finger made him look almost invincible.
However, Seo Jaewon noticed that Joo Youngha’s fine brow had narrowed slightly.
“Annoying…….”
Though it seemed advantageous, the situation didn’t appear to be going exactly as Joo Youngha intended.
Joo Youngha was trying to seize the fish while simultaneously stabbing and pushing it away.
However, because the opponent was so massive, it didn’t look easy.
Additionally, being in the water where the fish had free three-dimensional movement was a disadvantage for Joo Youngha.
‘KUWOOOOOO—’
The roar of the fish, enraged by its continuous failures, echoed everywhere.
The creature tore its maw open and lifted its house-sized head high.
Soon, with a thundering crash, a massive amount of silt and current rose from below.
It seemed the fish had slammed its body into the floor.
“?!”
Seo Jaewon checked below with a flustered heart.
‘What is it doing?’
“……It’s too dark to see.”
The darkness below was even deeper; now, the fish’s position could only be tracked by the light of the core on its forehead.
“Are you curious?”
Ah, that familiar expression.
The same look as when he said, “Because Jaewon likes to suffer for nothing.”
It was a face that said he didn’t understand at all, but would do it for him anyway.
Even in this situation, his reaction was exactly the same as the usual Joo Youngha.
The fact that it was equally irritating actually made the tension bleed away.
Before Seo Jaewon could respond, Joo Youngha descended the air bubble with an indifferent expression.
As expected, it was much darker below.
The darkness was murky and thick, almost as if it had mass.
However, thanks to the light of the core, they could more or less make out the creature’s surroundings.
The creature was busy moving around the bottom, poking at the floor.
Each time the giant body swept past, the settled silt and debris rose even more thickly.
“What is it doing…….”
At Seo Jaewon’s murmur, Min Yoomin shook his head with anxious eyes.
He also didn’t seem to know the reason.
However, perhaps thinking that the fish would notice them if they made even the slightest sound, he crouched carefully on the floor and kept his mouth shut.
Joo Youngha slowly followed behind the fish’s back, as if looking for an opening.
The fish seemed so absorbed in its unknown activity that it didn’t notice their presence.
Dirt, fragments of flowers and leaves, broken items that looked like parts of the department store…… everything in the darkness appeared blurred and indistinct.
They were only spotlit and revealed their identities when the fish swung its head.
As Seo Jaewon followed the scene with his eyes, he instinctively cursed and pulled his body back.
“……!”
A severed merman head drifted softly out of the darkness and silently bumped into the boundary between the air and water.
It then slowly slid away into the depths, leaving behind only a hollow stare.
Following behind it, fluttering in the ominous white light, were…… pieces of flesh and fins.
Only then did Seo Jaewon realize.
The fish wasn’t sweeping the floor for no reason.
It was eating the corpses of the mermen who had been killed by Joo Youngha and sunk to the bottom.
* * *
