After walking a little further, we reached our destination. In front of a deserted residential area, a dungeon gate waited, its bluish maw wide open. We walked toward it.

"You two! Hold on a second!" a strange voice called out. "Are you planning on entering that dungeon? It's a green one."

I turned to see a young man and woman who looked like players. The man was equipped with a shield and sword, while the woman carried only a bag with no special armament. I stepped forward to answer.

"We are, but neither of us has the stamina to clear a new dungeon. We were just planning to hunt some leftover mobs, grab some mana stones, and check for a portal while we're at it."

"Ah, I see!" The man turned to the woman. "Is that okay?" She nodded. The man spoke again. "You're the one who posted on the player community, right? If you don't mind, could we join you?"

"We were also thinking it's a shame to withdraw just yet, so we were planning to run one last one," the woman added.

It seemed they had seen my post on the message board.

"The more people, the safer for us. My name is Kim Yusin."

"I'm Cha Jingu. My position is tanker."

"I'm Im Sohee. I'm a supporting damage dealer."

With little time left, we quickly exchanged names. Yeon also bowed her head in greeting.

"I'm Hong Yeon. I don't really have a set position."

"Oh, an impressive introduction. Nice to meet you."

That's what the man said, but the woman covered her mouth with a startled expression.

"Y-Y-Hong Yeon? You don't mean the Association President's younger sister?"

"Huh? Ah, you're right! It's really her!"

The two of them made a fuss as if they'd met a celebrity. Yeon handled it calmly, as if it were a common occurrence. After fawning for a while, Jingu looked at me and asked, "To be with Hong Yeon, are you perhaps a certified hunter?"

"Unfortunately, I haven't earned my hunter license yet."

"Ah, that's a relief then. We're also players preparing to get our rank 5 this year. If you were a pro, we'd feel more pressured. Haha!"

I gave a placid nod. Just like with Heejong and Yoonji, pros expected to be treated with deference by provisionally licensed players. The dungeon would be easier, but the tiresome dynamics would be unavoidable.

After a brief introduction, we formed up according to our preferred positions. It was decided that Jingu, the tanker, would be in front; Yeon and I, the DDs, in the middle; and Sohee in the rear.

"Alright, let's head in."

"Okay!"

We took our first steps into what could possibly be our last dungeon.

* * *

As soon as we entered the dungeon beyond the portal, the smell of grass hit my nose. We were in the middle of a forest.

"Everyone make it in okay?" Jingu asked, waving his hand. As the tanker, he naturally took the lead. "Anyone feeling a headache or dizziness?"

Yeon and I shook our heads.

"How about you, babe?"

"I'm fine, hehe."

So they were a couple. Jingu placed a hand on her forehead, pretending to check her temperature, and she covered her mouth and giggled coyly. Give me a break.

"Ah, excuse me! This is no time for that."

Feeling our stares, Jingu cleared his throat. "For now, I don't sense any monsters. Let's split up for twenty minutes to find clues and meet back here. Don't go too far."

"Okay."

It was a time when we gathered information to estimate the location of the Boss Zone. Those clues were scattered throughout the field. We gathered again after twenty minutes.

"I cut a mutated otherworldly tree, and the rings were strangely skewed to one side."

"I found a large amount of monster droppings at the five o'clock position, to the south. Doesn't seem too old."

"I found a river. It's flowing in the six o'clock direction."

It went something like that. Everyone shared the clues they'd found, and I provided the decisive one.

"There were signs of a battle on that stone hill over there. Looks like the previous party fought there."

"Ooh! A good start."

The movements of the previous party were a huge help. Since all the clues pointed in one direction, we headed that way. The traces of battle continued. The corpses of monkey-like monsters were strewn across the ground and in the trees. Jingu, who was at the very front examining a monster corpse, spoke.

"It's a rank-3 Samius. They travel in packs, so we need to be careful. Let's take a slight detour around the hill."

Since someone had already cleared it, the dungeon exploration progressed quickly. We were now walking along a river. There were no monsters in sight.

"Honey, do your legs hurt?"

"Ah, stop it, you're embarrassing me! Do you know that's the third time you've asked?" Sohee grumbled, but she was smiling, clearly not in a bad mood. Then she turned to us and asked, "Ah! By the way, are you two a couple, by any chance?"

"No."

"No."

We answered at the same time. Ah, the timing…

"Ohoho! Great minds think alike! You are a couple!" Sohee continued to tease us, finding our reaction amusing. Yeon just shook her head as if it wasn't even worth a response. If she'd at least flinched, it might have been fun to tease her, but she was a rather boring type too.

"Everyone, look over here!" Jingu, who had been examining something up ahead, waved his hand. We went to see what was going on and found a fallen mid-sized monster that looked like a wild boar.

"This is the corpse of a Sisyphus, known to be quite tricky even among rank 4s."

This time, even Yeon seemed curious, brushing her red hair back as she crouched beside the corpse.

"I was under the impression that the Sisyphus was a monster found in lake terrain."

"Hmm, there might be a lake nearby! Since we're following the stream, a large lake might appear up ahead."

I couldn't focus on their conversation. My eyes were on the monster's corpse, but all my senses were focused on my hearing and touch. 'Stay calm. It'll be a problem if I give it away now.' I suppressed the trembling and immersed myself. The flow of mana was changing. It had definitely changed. Now.

…It's coming!

'KWOOSH!'

A deafening roar erupted. The headwind whipped my hair and clothes wildly. I glanced to the side and saw what looked like a thick tree trunk. The horizontally extending trunk had shot past where Yeon and Jingu were and crashed into a large, old tree in the distance. It was so massive that I couldn't even see a trace of Yeon, who had been buried by it.

I looked behind me. A tree root, identical to the one that had struck her, was twitching behind me, ready to swallow me whole. But a glass-like shield was deployed behind me, blocking it.

"…Kgh!"

Through the shield, I could see Sohee's face, hardened in a scowl. Her two arms had transformed, becoming large and tree-like. It was a completely different form of power from the light-based Unique Ability she had displayed earlier.

I smiled faintly. "I was wondering when you'd show your true colors. Is this all you've got?"

She gasped.

She bit her lip. "You knew all along?"

"Of course."

"To follow us even though you knew… you have a sick sense of humor. But how about this?"

'Crrrack!' Force was being applied to the wooden arm that had swallowed Yeon.

"Kneel! If you want to save your cute little girlfriend."

I stuck a finger in my ear to clean it. "Don't want to."

"…You bastard!"

The tree roots that had been blocked by the shield extended from the left and right to attack. I dodged them with light steps.

"Kyaaaaaaaaaak!"

Sohee's mouth ripped open like a monster's, spewing a distorted, acrid voice. The flow of mana changed. I quickly looked around and saw the change originating from the trees surrounding us. Their bark cracked open, revealing things like living eyeballs, and soon, their inner trunks shot up with ferocious momentum. So this entire area was a trap.

"But you know," I said, just as the tree roots that had shot into the sky transformed into spears and were about to descend. A single red gash was drawn across all the surrounding tree trunks. "Isn't the very idea of taking 'her' hostage just hilarious?"

'SHING!'

The trees split in half like tofu along the red lines. The roots that had shot up lost their power and fell to the ground with a thud. And walking through the rain of falling plants was a woman with red hair.

"I've been waiting," Yeon said. A strange light shone in her eyes. "Demonkin."

Sohee's expression didn't just harden; it contorted.

Demonkin were traitors to humanity. Those whose bodies, ideologies, and minds have been corrupted and "monsterized." The demonkin transformation was a type of Disaster in itself. Because they were once human, they could blend into society and work towards humanity's destruction, making them, in some ways, more troublesome than high-ranking monsters.

Not many people knew about demonkin yet. Even veteran hunters who had been in this business for over a decade, many had never seen one. Most civilians considered them an urban legend, assuming they were the result of some monster's infection, but if anything, the rumors downplayed the reality.

"Hyoin Go! Just finish them!" Jingu shouted.

That was a name I hadn't heard before. Did they have more comrades lying in ambush?

The change was immediate. The ground rippled and began to suck downward like quicksand. Of course, that included us, who were standing on it.

At the edge of the dark pit, things like animal teeth began to pop out. A large tongue even formed in the middle of the pit. Before we knew it, we were no longer standing on the ground but about to be swallowed up by a monster's mouth.

"Yeon."

I prepared a Devastar magic circle on my right foot, which I had kept free, and spoke.

"Have you ever killed a person before?"

"No," she answered calmly, raising her sword.

"You think you'll be okay?"

"Does it matter? That thing is just a monster that 'used' to be human."

"If you can rationalize it that quickly, then I have nothing to worry about."

"I don't care if the opponent is human or something else." A murderous glint flashed in her eyes. "If it gets in my way, I will eliminate it, no matter who it is."

The swamp had already submerged us up to our knees. The teeth and lips rose, and the pit increasingly resembled a monster's mouth.

-Tower Master. Devastar magic circle construction complete.

At Ea's voice, I brushed my palm against my right foot.

"Hmph, it's useless! You can't escape now, no matter what you do!" a voice, more monster than human, echoed from the pit. Was this that Hyoin?

I buried my right foot deeper into the swamp.

"When we get out of here, you take the tree monster."

"Understood."

And then, I activated Devastar.

* * *

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