We resumed our exploration of the dungeon. The place was still crawling with corpse spiders, but we were no longer in any danger.

Because we had Eunsol.

"Stop!" she commanded, hands on her hips in a cute, commanding pose. The spiders actually flinched and froze in place. In that brief opening, I would incinerate them with a Fire Cannon, or Seojin would shatter their heads with his fists.

"Great job, Eunsol!" Bora cheered, swinging her arms.

But Eunsol looked sullen. "I can make the zombies move, but I can only make the spiders stop."

"Stopping them is more than enough!" Bora insisted. "We've got those ridiculously strong guys over there, after all."

'Ridiculously strong? That's a bit harsh.'

In any case, with Eunsol's help, we dispatched the swarming monsters with ease. After another twenty minutes of walking, Ea spoke.

-Tower Master, I am sensing a strong magical energy ahead. The signatures of the hunter party are also emanating from the same location.

'Okay.'

We cautiously entered the Boss Zone, a vast cavern draped in thick, gray webs.

"Pfft!"

I'd been on high alert, but the sight before me made me burst out laughing. The hunter, Ma Jongguk, and his subordinates were trussed up from head to toe in webbing, left helpless like flies in a trap. The scene was so perfectly aligned with my expectations it was almost jarring.

"B-Boss! Look over there!" one of the players shouted.

Jongguk, who had been hanging his head in resignation, snapped his gaze toward us, his eyes widening in disbelief. "Y-You…!"

"Fancy seeing you here again, Mr. Hunter," I said with a smirk.

His face turned beet red as he frantically shushed me. "Be quiet! That spider bastard is sleeping!" He shot a terrified glance at a heavily webbed area a short distance away. "A-anyway, good timing! I'll overlook you disobeying my orders. Just hurry up and get me out of this!"

"No."

The hopeful expressions on the faces of Jongguk's crew instantly hardened into stone.

"W-what did you say?" he sputtered. "This is no time for jokes!"

He yelled, but being wrapped up like a human burrito, he wasn't the least bit threatening. I casually cleaned my ear. "What if the boss notices us while we're trying to free you? A certified rank-5 hunter got caught. What could a couple of students like us possibly do?"

I threw his own words back at him, and his face crumpled beautifully. Behind me, Bora snorted with laughter.

"Ah, shit! Shut up and get me out of this!" he roared. "That's a hunter's order!"

"Alright, everyone. Let's head out."

As we actually turned to leave, Jongguk's face went pale. "Wait! Wait! Wait!" he screamed.

I glanced back. Biting his lip to swallow his humiliation, he continued, "…F-fine. I'm sorry for looking down on you. I apologize. I'm Jongguk, a certified rank-5 hunter! I only got caught because I let my guard down. There's no way I'd lose in a grade-3 dungeon! I'll take care of that thing in a flash and split the reward evenly."

"The boss is scary, but you're a problem, too," I said, not missing the flicker of guilt in his eyes. "How do we know you won't try something once we let you go? Think about it. What reason do we have to risk our lives to save you?"

"I-I swear! I won't do anything!" he pleaded.

I looked at Bora. She was trying to contain herself, but her expression screamed that she was dying to play this little game.

"Do what you want," I said.

A wicked grin spread across her face as she stepped forward.

'I can't tell who the real villain is here.'

"I'm still not seeing any 'sincerity'," she said sweetly. "Now, why don't you repeat after me?"

A moment later, Jongguk's crew was shouting in perfect, miserable unison.

"W-we swear to relinquish all rewards from the boss monster permanently!"

"Good," Bora cooed.

"We promise not to cause any harm and swear to provide a full and accurate testimony about the dungeon's first discoverer!"

"One of you was too slow!" she chirped.

"We…"

Bora knew exactly how to make a person feel utterly pathetic. After forcing them through several more retries, she turned her head. "You got all that, right, Seojin?"

"Yes."

Seojin had been recording them with his phone since the moment we arrived. Their faces froze. This was deeply satisfying.

"If you're done playing, let's go," I said, getting to my feet. My two companions fell in beside me. "Eunsol, it's dangerous, so hide here."

"Okay!" she whispered.

"H-hey! Wait!" Jongguk shouted, his face flushed with rage. "You have to untie me so I can fight with you!"

"We'll fight it on our own."

"What? You crazy bastard! That's no ordinary rank-3 boss!"

Of course, I knew that.

Crawling noises began to echo through the dungeon.

He really should have kept his voice down. As a bizarre cry echoed from the distance, the color drained from the faces of Jongguk and his men.

'THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD!'

A monstrous spider with six hairy legs and huge black stripes emerged from the shadows. The corpse spiders had been big, but they were miniature compared to this thing.

Arachnophobia. The ruler of this domain.

'SCREEE!'

Pleased with its new prey, the creature let out a series of alien clicks and screeches. A murky green liquid dripped from its fanged maw.

"…Ugh," Bora groaned, hiding behind me.

"Seojin, draw its attention."

"Yes, Tower Master."

Seojin strode forward and ripped off his shirt, revealing a compact frame packed with dense, angry muscle. He adjusted his glasses with grim determination. "I am not confident, but I will give it my all."

Arachnophobia charged, and Seojin, a natural-born fighter, met it head-on. Just as the distance between them closed, the spider spewed a torrent of webbing from its mouth.

Faced with a flood of webs erupting in more than twenty streams, Seojin slammed on the brakes and scrambled sideways.

'So that's it.' That was the technique that made me certain Jongguk's party could never clear this dungeon. The author who chronicled the events in Erendel had described it thusly:

[The webs shot from the spider's mouth covered the sky in white, instantly immobilizing twenty knights. When my soldiers and I arrived, the knights could only watch, their eyes wide with horror, as the spiderlings devoured their entrails.]

The author's description was apt. Seojin's evasion was flawless, but the sheer volume of webbing blocked off the entire space, leaving him with nowhere to run. While frantically dodging, he stepped on a stray strand. It clung to him like glue, stretching and pulling, and his escape was cut short. His body was instantly swallowed by the white deluge.

"Look at that! Look! I told you so!" Jongguk shrieked from behind me. He was so damn loud. I wished the spider had webbed his mouth shut, too.

Still, Seojin had bought me the time I needed. Using Copy Magical Position, I had prepared multiple magic circles.

'Ea, are you ready?'

-Acquisition complete. Marking Arachnophobia's leg joints as targets.

Blue crosshairs, like those in a shooter game, appeared on each of the spider's leg joints. Now was the time.

<Spin Guide Arrow>

Mana arrows shot from the magic circles, spinning so violently their trajectories were impossible to track. The Arachnophobia thrashed, trying to dodge, but it was useless.

'Pshnk!' An arrow slammed into a middle leg joint from the side. As the beast turned toward the impact, two more arrows struck its legs from the opposite direction.

'Skreeeee!'

Six arrows, one after another, embedded themselves deep in its joints. The beast let out a piercing scream of pain.

-Leg joints destroyed," Ea confirmed. "Arachnophobia's mobility has been reduced by seventy percent.

"Bora!"

"Yes!"

Bora, who had been waiting with an armful of oil potions, let out a comical battle cry and hurled them. Though she simply threw them, the potions accelerated at a frightening speed, landing precisely on Arachnophobia's body.

'What an absurdly useful trait.'

'Our turn,' I thought.

-Understood.

Ea and I entered a state of deep concentration, completing the final magic circle.

<Copy Magical Position>

<Fire Cannon>

'FWOOOOSH!'

A massive Fire Cannon materialized above my head. At the sight of the flames, Arachnophobia twisted as if having a seizure, gagging as it tried to squeeze out more webs. This was now a race against time. How quickly could it fire again after that first barrage?

Dammit. With almost no delay, a white wave crashed toward me. The webs instantly bleached my vision and enveloped my body. A nauseating, paint-like smell filled my nostrils, and I felt the sticky texture of silk on my lips. In the blink of an eye, I was buried, unable to move so much as a finger.

"…Y-Yusin!" Bora cried out.

"I knew this would happen, you crazy bastards!" Jongguk howled.

My world was white, my body immobile. But still…

'FWOOOOOOOOSH!'

My concentration remained unbroken. The Fire Cannon, cast remotely, blazed to life, emerging from the pile of webs. The heat melted the strands like wax, which dripped to the floor in gooey clumps.

'Go.'

The Fire Cannon flew in a wide arc, leaving a trail of black smoke. I ignited a small flame on my fingertip, freeing my hand, and tore away the webbing from my face to clear my vision. The Arachnophobia, despite its shattered legs, was writhing violently, trying to dodge.

'It'll be a problem if it dodges… huh?'

Just then, the monster's movements ceased. It simply stared, its multifaceted eyes vacant, as the fireball hurtled toward it.

'KABOOM!'

A direct hit.

'KIEEEEEEEEEEE!'

It might have withstood the raw power of the magic, but the flames spreading across its oil-soaked body were fatal. Its flesh sizzled and burned as it thrashed wildly. I used the opportunity to burn my way out of the remaining webs.

"Yusin! Are you okay?" Bora shouted.

"I'm fine."

The boss, its entire body ablaze, was no longer paying any attention to us. It rolled on the floor, slammed itself against the walls, and did everything it could to extinguish the flames. Fire was the weakness of this entire dungeon. Even the web attack, powerful enough to neutralize a hunter, was easily countered. I remembered another excerpt from the book.

[When one of our soldiers, caught in the webs, accidentally dropped his torch, the tough strands that could not be cut by a sword crumbled to ash as if by magic. Seeing this, we faced the giant spider with torches in both hands. We brought all the lantern oil from the village, doused the beast's body, and set it alight to bring it down. I offer this glory to the twelve gods who granted us enlightenment in our moment of crisis.]

Arachnophobia's movements slowed, grew sluggish, and finally stopped. It collapsed to the floor in a smoldering heap.

[Magic Power has increased by 10.]

[Willpower has increased by 3.]

[Endurance has increased by 1.]

I checked the system messages and turned around. In the distance, I saw Eunsol, who had been peeking out, quickly duck back into hiding.

"…Does that make any sense?" Jongguk stammered in disbelief. "That monster was taken down that easily?"

His subordinates were now looking at him with open suspicion. It was only natural for their faith to be shaken. A certified hunter had failed where academy students had succeeded. It just went to show how crucial information and affinities were in a dungeon. And with the Magic Tower's Great Library at my disposal, I had an overwhelming advantage.

I used a simple ignition spell to free Seojin from the webs. "Good work, Seojin."

"Hehe." He pushed his glasses up with his index finger. "Truly a victory of strategy and tactics, Tower Master."

'Right. If using your sturdy body as bait counts as a strategy, then I guess it was.'

Just as everyone was breathing a collective sigh of relief…

'Crack.'

Arachnophobia's charred corpse began to twitch.

'CRUNCH! SNAP! POP!'

Its skin, which had been swelling like a balloon, burst open. Something drenched in viscous fluid shot out from inside.

"…Oh!" Bora choked out. "What is that thing now?"

A long, segmented body, reminiscent of a centipede, unfurled to a terrifying size, its head scraping the cavern ceiling. Countless tiny legs rippled along its torso, and its face was not the blank carapace of an insect but a bizarre, twitching mockery of an animal's, with eyes, a nose, and a mouth all in the wrong places.

The dead spider's body began to swell again, its fur and shell sinking into a pulsating mass of raw flesh.

Nearby bones were absorbed into the mass and crushed to dust. From the pulsing flesh, things resembling a baby's chubby limbs popped out with wet, slapping sounds. They waved toward us, grasping, as if coveting the living.

The boss fight wasn't over.

An overwhelming pressure descended upon the entire Boss Zone. Everyone was frozen by the horrific sight. The first to move was Seojin.

"I will make a preemptive strike."

He shot forward like a bolt of lightning, the ground cracking under his feet, then vanished with a sharp 'whoosh!' A split second later, a deafening crash echoed from somewhere beyond our perception, and the entire cave shook violently. He had been hit by something too fast to see. The display was enough to shatter everyone's will to fight.

"A-a mutated monster?" one of the hunters stammered.

"…Ha, haha. What, there was another main body?" Jongguk laughed, a broken, despairing sound. "Hahaha! It's over! We're all gonna die for real!"

Even their leader had lost it. And I…

"That's one," I said, taking a slow step forward.

Jongguk's furious gaze locked onto me. "What are you talking about, you crazy son of a bitch?! If you had just untied us and run away—!"

I met his gaze, my expression unreadable. "It's only fired one shot. The remaining ammunition is…"

'WHOOOOOSH!'

Blue light swirled from all directions as azure magic circles bloomed around me like a field of ethereal flowers. Nineteen Fire Cannons in total. The look of pure astonishment on Jongguk's face was a sight to behold.

"Marking the weak point with coordinates," Ea stated calmly.

A blue marker appeared on the centipede monster's neck. With Ea's accuracy correction, there was nothing to fear. The mana I had gathered was humming, a living ecosystem begging to be unleashed. Hearing its cry, I placed my hand on the activation trigger.

'Volley fire.'

As I clenched my fist, nineteen fireballs launched simultaneously, streaking toward the monster's neck without the slightest deviation. A moment later, nineteen second-order fire spells erupted in a single, cataclysmic explosion. The blast momentarily illuminated the cave with the light of a false day.

"Hah!"

"Aaah!"

The shockwave threw everyone to the ground. Debris rained from the ceiling, the cave groaning as if it would collapse at any moment.

And right in front of Jongguk, who was staring blankly into the smoke…

'THUD!'

The centipede monster's head, its neck burned clean through, crashed to the floor.

This time, too, a single volley was enough.

[Fire Cannon magic circle proficiency has reached 70%.]

[Magic Power has increased by 10.]

[Focus has increased by 3.]

[Intelligence has increased by 1.]

I exhaled the breath I had been holding, gathering my swirling mana.

-Did you not agree to avoid overexerting yourself, Tower Master?

Ea's voice was prim, almost chiding.

I just smiled. 'That's why I stayed up all night raising my proficiency.'

Training my Fire Cannon proficiency had been my sole preparation for this dungeon. I hadn't slept a wink.

"Good work, Yusin!" Bora exclaimed.

"Yeah, you too."

The tension that had gripped the cavern evaporated, leaving a strange, quiet afterglow.

"As expected of the Tower Master," Seojin said, walking over to rejoin us, looking completely unscathed.

While Jongguk's party stared, utterly dumbfounded, we concluded our hunt in a warm, victorious atmosphere. I approached the dead boss monster, rummaged through the charred remains for a moment, and pocketed a high-purity magic stone. The Association could handle collecting the corpse.

"All done," I announced. "Let's head back."

"Okay!" Bora cheered.

"Hey, wait a minute! W-what about us?" Jongguk called out desperately.

Bora turned, a sweet smile on her face as she wagged a finger at him. "Don't you worry! I called the Association staff a while ago, so they'll be here soon. Think of it as your punishment until then."

"W-wait! You're not really leaving, are you? Huh? Hey!"

Such a baby for a grown man.

For some reason, I had a feeling I would have sweet dreams tonight.

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