Chapter 185

Once the tightly packed walls disappeared, the distance felt even farther.

‘This place might not run on normal logic, but it really is something.’

I shifted my gaze and glanced at Im Haekyung, still frozen in the same posture as if nailed to the spot. He lightly brushed off his hands, tilted his head slightly to the side, and met my eyes.

“It wasn’t that hard.”

After that brief comment, he turned his gaze forward again.

“Regardless of the scale, it really does seem like the walls themselves are all connected as a single device. I can’t exactly call it purely a material domain. It feels a bit like a mental domain, too.”

Listening to his explanation, I nodded calmly.

From the start, the dungeon’s very name had been the Maze of Desire.

‘This entire space itself could be desire.’

Even as we traded that kind of conversation, “Jin Haedo” was still standing there, silently staring this way.

“I-I... want to go back.”

Just then, I heard Yang Dokyeong’s voice from the very front, where he’d been leading the way through the maze.

As he slowly turned back, anxiety was written all over his face. Swallowing with a sluggish gulp, he trembled and spoke again.

W-we don’t need the path anymore. I want to go back. From the start, esc-escaping... escaping is all we had to do. Now there’s no path anymore. I don’t have to go.”

His fast, quivering voice was all over the place, but the message itself was clear enough. He had no intention of going to where Jin Haedo was.

‘For “conditioned fear,” that’s pretty intense.’

Meeting Yang Dokyeong’s eyes, I briefly considered just sending him back as he was.

“Mr. Jehyun.”

At that moment, at the sound of Im Haekyung calling me, I tore my gaze away from Yang Dokyeong. Gesturing me closer, he only started talking once I’d narrowed the distance.

“There was something I didn’t get to say earlier.”

“What is it?”

“Mr. Dokyeong’s mental state isn’t in very good shape. Which means there are limits to how much I can use Mental Domination on him.”

The fact that his mental state looked bad was obvious at a glance, so it wasn’t exactly a shocking revelation.

‘But if he’s bringing it up like this, he has a reason.’

Looking at Yang Dokyeong, I recalled what Do Yehyun had said.

‘It just seems like... when someone desperately wants something, it swallows that, and only the shell is left. Once a person’s desire disappears, they can’t function as a human anymore.’

Was he really someone whose desire had been completely stripped away? For that, his survival instinct seemed pretty strong.

Fear was originally a form based on the drive to survive. Wasn’t there something off about saying every last “desire” had been removed from a guy who was still shaking like that out of sheer terror?

That aside, no matter how little “mind” he supposedly had left, it was hard to accept that the same Im Haekyung who’d just manipulated an unconscious bastard and even these walls was saying this was difficult.

“You controlled these walls too. And they don’t exactly look conscious.”

At that, Im Haekyung’s eyes narrowed. He wasn’t looking at me in displeasure; it was more like he was weighing something, hesitating.

“Hm... Mr. Jehyun, you’re good at figuring out ways to use other people’s skills, but your actual understanding of those skills seems a bit lacking.”

“...Excuse me?”

“Controlling and regulating behavior is surprisingly simple. You just input a command. You blow a ‘come here’ into someone’s mind and that’s that. Moving the body in accordance with the command is the brain’s job anyway.”

“......”

“But securing testimony like just now... is a bit more delicate. You have to keep their consciousness clearly awake while drawing their answer out. Make them bring it up on their own, get them to let it out of their mouth without any doubt... it’s complicated.”

After that brief explanation, he turned his gaze toward Yang Dokyeong.

“Mr. Dokyeong’s mind is already in a heavily broken state. It might be easier to understand if you picture it as full of holes everywhere. It’s a mind someone has already... messed with.”

“Hm.”

So he wasn’t just some guy who’d gone crazy.

In that case, who had the kind of ability that could punch holes all through Yang Dokyeong’s mind? As far as this maze was concerned, there was only one candidate.

I looked at Jin Haedo, whose distance from us stubbornly refused to close, and thought,

‘There has to be a way to guarantee a clear.’

“Guild Master.”

“Yes?”

“Let’s shorten the distance.”

An unreal-looking distance, the endless darkness I’d seen before coming in here, the towering walls, the tangled maze.

From the beginning, the space itself had been absurdly devoid of order. Even trying to interpret it using Ahn Jinha and Gi Cheongmin’s words, it was a bizarre space that refused to be unified into anything coherent.

‘It all makes sense if this entire space is something he arbitrarily created.’

Fundamentally, a dungeon and a dungeon boss were just a space and the being that lived in that space.

Like a place called a snowy mountain, with a Cave Giant living there.

It meant the Cave Giant didn’t create that snowy mountain, and didn’t significantly affect the composition of the mountain itself.

But what if the “dungeon boss” could create the dungeon? If the boss’s thoughts could put up walls and create space at will, then conversely, wouldn’t that mean a high-rank mental-type hunter could destroy this space?

And just now, by shoving the walls aside, we’d already gotten solid confirmation of that possibility.

“If this really is a mental space, we should be able to shrink the distance too. As long as you’re okay with it, Guild Master.”

“......”

“Now that we’ve cleared the walls away, he’s going to be thinking about that on his side too. Walking over like this, it feels like it’ll never end.”

When I said that, Im Haekyung quietly looked around this place, then smiled.

“It makes me happy to hear you think so highly of my ability, /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ Mr. Jehyun.”

“Yeah.”

“Sometimes I get a little hurt, you know. Like you only want my ability and don’t really care about me.”

“That couldn’t be further from the truth. I’m very interested in you, Guild Master.”

At this point, keeping my distance was already a lost cause. Given how things stood, if I could butter him up now and make use of him when things got dangerous, that was guaranteed profit.

At that, he let out a short burst of laughter at my words, then answered quietly.

“Ah... I’m very interested in you too, Mr. Jehyun. I’m pretty sure I’m more interested than you are.”

“Yeah.”

It was fine when I said things like that, but coming from Im Haekyung, the line was definitely creepy. When I frowned, he went out of his way to ignore it and clapped his hands once.

“Alright. Let’s give it a try.”

Casting a brief look at Yang Dokyeong, who was still using every spare moment to plot escape, and at Do Yehyun standing quietly at my side, Im Haekyung stretched out his hand and placed it on the ground.

“To be honest, this is a first for me too... it’s hard to picture.”

“......”

“But I feel like it’ll work.”

With that, the corners of his mouth curved up, and he pressed the ground hard.

Woomph.

‘What the hell?’

Reflexively, I lifted my head and looked up at the distant “sky.”

Now that the walls were gone, it definitely felt like the space had gotten brighter. To the point where it was hard to tell whether this was night or day.

The sky was still dark, but not to the degree where you couldn’t make out what was in front of you. I could even see the shape of Jin Haedo way over there.

Just then, I saw a section of the pitch-black sky ripple.

As if a thin membrane were stretched over it, transparent light reflected and warped again and again.

“It’s night again....”

At the mutter, I reflexively lowered my head, looking for the source of the voice.

I could clearly see Yang Dokyeong, looking half out of his wits, whispering something to himself.

Ignoring him, I kept my eyes on Jin Haedo, still standing straight ahead.

‘Hm?’

Was I imagining it? The distance between us was big enough that I couldn’t even make out the exact outline of his doll, much less his face, but it looked like Jin Haedo’s mouth was moving.

Screeech—

An ominous sound like something tearing stabbed at my ears. I started to lower my head, thinking the ground might be collapsing, when my shoulder was grabbed. Turning my head, I saw Do Yehyun shaking his head, anxiety written on his face.

“......”

“What?”

Narrowing my eyes, I stared at Do Yehyun’s lips. His mouth was opening and closing like he was saying something, but I couldn’t hear a sound.

“Talk, Yehyun.”

I urged him, but his voice still didn’t reach me. I could only make out the shape of his lips a little more clearly.

‘Don’t.’

What wasn’t I supposed to do?

No, before that, why the hell was he insisting on talking with just his mouth like that—

That was when a colossal roar slammed into my ears.

KWA-BOOM!!!

The force of it was enough to make my body sway. I barely managed to steady myself and look straight ahead, and in that instant, I could clearly read Jin Haedo’s mouth, which I’d thought I might have been imagining before.

‘Stop.’

Was it anger over having his space invaded?

As I furrowed my brow faintly, trying to parse Jin Haedo’s words, a familiar status window suddenly filled my vision.

system: Stop.