Chapter 227

It was a strange thing. That a “feeling” one person had could infect other people, too.

‘Fear is even worse.’

Fear that started from one person spread fast. In a situation like this, the speed would be even faster.

They probably felt it the moment they entered this Dungeon in the first place. They were already people far more sensitive to mana than average. The instant they reached the Dungeon, there was no way they didn’t realize the mana this place carried was overwhelmingly stronger than their own.

But even so, did they predict their own deaths?

They said that ever since becoming Hunters, they fought death every moment, but in a way, from the moment they surpassed what an ordinary human could do so easily, they were already one step removed from death.

The kind of bastards who were full of things like absolute certainty that they were overwhelmingly stronger than normal people, and a kind of numbness to fear that let them go in and out of places where death lay in wait, over and over—how sane could they really be?

Sense of duty, obligation, orders from superiors, good rewards and compensation... all of that was just an extra problem.

For bastards who made “going into a Dungeon and coming back alive” their everyday life, how big would the fear be the moment they got this faint conviction that they were going to die?

Thump.

Right then, the ground shook. Starting from where the Hunters were gathered, a huge vibration spread out, and a heavy sound like the entire earth was humming slammed into my ears.

“Retreat... should we pull back now?”

One Hunter looked at Song Hwayoung and asked urgently. But Song Hwayoung didn’t say a word. She already knew.

“Retreat...? Where....”

A Hunter beside Song Hwayoung muttered to himself.

He was right. There was nowhere to retreat to. Until they killed the Dungeon Boss, they couldn’t leave this place.

“I want to... stop.”

The Hunter who’d been staring into empty air and muttering to himself earlier spoke again, like it was still just to himself.

‘That’s a face I know.’

Hunter Seok Jiwon from Haeseong. I’d never met him in person, but his face showed up pretty often in news photos.

Hunter Seok murmured like he was talking to himself, then took a step back. And before anyone beside him could grab him, he started running.

“Hey!!!”

Another Haeseong Hunter who’d come with him shouted his name in a panic.

But he couldn’t catch Hunter Seok, who was sprinting off toward somewhere. He kept knocking away the masses rising from the ground, trying to get closer.

“Stop.”

A firm voice dropped straight down behind him.

The Hunter whipped around to look at Song Hwayoung and spoke like he was suffocating with frustration.

“How the hell am I supposed to stop? If he breaks off right now, he dies!”

“So you’re going to go after him? This side is urgent too. If you chase this Hunter, all you’ll do is make two stragglers.”

“You don’t get it, Guild Master Song! Because he wasn’t your teammate.”

“I don’t get it? I’ve been through this kind of thing countless times. I’m a Guild Master!”

“But you’re not the Guild Master of Haeseong!”

“If it were Guild Master Im, do you think he would’ve allowed you to break off?”

At Song Hwayoung’s sharp words, the Hunter’s mouth closed.

That didn’t mean he accepted what she said. Even now, both his eyes were overflowing with emotions he couldn’t put into words. Was it closer to dissatisfaction?

But in the end, he quietly gripped his artifact and went back ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) to silently hacking away at the masses.

‘So that’s how the two I saw earlier got separated too, huh.’

If so, Hunter Seok dying was basically a done deal. There was no way he could overcome the fear of being left alone.

How much time passed?

Even though quite a lot of time had passed, the situation still hadn’t improved. The ground kept steadily producing shapes that looked like humans, and the Hunters were busy doing nothing but getting rid of them.

I lifted my leg and shook off the masses that were tangling up from the ground.

I already knew the way out of this situation. The problem was that it was hard to explain to the Hunters who were struggling their asses off.

‘It’s simple.’

If you didn’t feel fear, it was useless. If something tried to forcibly inject fear into you, then it would become a problem from there, but in this situation, honestly, I didn’t have anything to be afraid of.

Because I knew it would get resolved even if I just stayed still.

Still, separate from believing all of this would end eventually, a fun thought came to mind.

So were all of these people just extras sacrificed for Kwon Taehan’s dramatic entrance?

Right then, I felt a hand lightly wrap around my shoulder.

“Shh.”

“.......”

Even if he didn’t tell me to be quiet, I was already planning to.

Im Haekyung had approached without a sound, and somehow managed to recognize me even though I had a Stealth Orb in my mouth. Then again, it was only a B-rank item—there were plenty of ways to detect it.

“I guess you can’t talk right now anyway....”

The hand that had been gripping my shoulder slid up, grabbed my chin for a moment, then dropped away. I tilted my head and looked at Im Haekyung.

Im Haekyung’s face looked no different than it had outside the Dungeon. They looked straight at me and wore a faint smile.

“You can spit it out now.”

“.......”

“Because I’m here?”

Just like Im Haekyung said, I spat the Stealth Orb out.

Even after the stealth item vanished, nobody here recognized us. Im Haekyung had controlled their minds and erased the recognition itself.

After I put the item away, I finally faced Im Haekyung properly.

“What were you going to do if I died? You just throw people into an S-rank Dungeon like it’s nothing.”

“I knew you wouldn’t die.”

“So confident?”

“I don’t trust what you say, Mr. Jehyun, but I do believe you won’t die in a place like this. Anyway, you must be pretty angry. Your sentences keep getting shorter.”

Fuck, you tossed me into an S-rank Dungeon out of nowhere—how would I not be pissed? What a fucking fascinating idea.

“Don’t be angry. You used me when you needed me, and I’m just using you when I need you.”

“.......”

“If the reason you accepted my condition to enter Haeseong was because you already knew SH would collapse... then I got scammed one-sidedly. So shouldn’t I be allowed to take this much? I invested a lot into you, Mr. Jehyun.”

“Haha....”

I gave a short laugh and narrowed my eyes.

‘What a long fucking tongue.’

Throwing someone into a Dungeon and then rationalizing it. Fuck. I’d busted my ass evacuating people just in case Do Yehyun or Joo Seowon might enter—and now I was the one in here. What a great job.

But still, it was true I’d been the one waiting for Im Haekyung.

“I’ll explain the situation.”

“You calmed down?”

“Like hell. I’ll consider it after we get out alive.”

I shoved my hand into my pocket, lifted my chin toward the Hunters, and gestured.

“A-rank Hunters. A few ran. One of them was Haeseong.”

“A Haeseong Hunter... do you know what happened?”

“How would I know. Highest probability is he’s dead. That’s unfortunate.”

“.......”

I checked Im Haekyung out of the corner of my eye, then kept going.

“It’s a Dungeon that stimulates fear. To put it simply, it’s a Dungeon where if you’re scared, you die. Someone next to you gets scared and dies, you see it and get scared and die, and it repeats.”

“A chain reaction would be... nice here.”

“Yes.”

Right then, one Hunter got pinned under countless masses and screamed.

“Aaaagh! S-save me!”

“No!”

The other Hunters hurriedly tore at the masses, but his whole body was already wrapped up.

“It looks dangerous.”

“But those masses are basically just dolls that imitate human shapes. They look fucking disgusting, but they don’t have attack power.”

“And that, too, is an ‘emotion’?”

At Im Haekyung’s words, I turned my gaze and looked at them quietly. Im Haekyung met my eyes like there was no intention behind it and tugged up the corner of their mouth.

“Anyway... you’re saying they can’t do anything except provoke fear.”

“Yes.”

Right then, the Hunter buried in the masses screamed.

“No, no.... Please don’t come!”

“Calm down!”

He kept moving like he was violently resisting inside the mass, then his body went limp.

“Mr. Yuhyun? Mr. Yuhyun, are you alive?”

“Hunter Kim!”

The situation turned urgent. When a Hunter is screaming like he’s about to die right in front of you, it’s hard to stay calm.

I watched the idiots panicking and flailing around in an instant, then crookedly pulled up the corner of my mouth.

I kept thinking, over and over, about whether to intervene. Should I just watch so Song Hwayoung died, or should I intervene even a little?

But now that I’d arrived here, it was impossible to be a one-hundred-percent spectator anymore.

“Are you going to stop Guild Master Song from dying here?”

“If it’s Guild Master Song’s choice, or something outside the range I can affect, then I might not be able to stop it... but I’m not going to just leave someone to die.”

“.......”

Yeah. That was the answer I expected.

Mimic (S) has been activated.

It wasn’t particularly useful to me, though.

Mental Domination (S) has been activated.

Maybe because I was pulling out a high-grade Skill for the first time in a while, I could feel the fiend that had been quietly living inside my body suddenly start thrashing.

Along with adrenaline, massive mana flowed through my body.

‘Hoo....’

It wasn’t easy to handle, but it wasn’t bad either. The more I felt the bastard raging, the stronger the intensity of the mana running through me became.

Just enough to withstand an S-rank Skill like Im Haekyung’s.

‘Now that my rank went up... it’s way better.’

Of course, it wasn’t like my stats were good enough to fully implement every S-rank Skill.

But maybe because I’d used it once before, I had a solid feel for how to do it.

“......!”

Erasing fear was fundamentally impossible. Because the desire to live exists.

Since I couldn’t reproduce the Skill at Im Haekyung’s level, I couldn’t knead and twist the emotions of a bunch of A-rank Hunters however I wanted.

But controlling at least one person’s mind was more than enough...

“Huuk...!”

“Yuhyun!”

“This is....”

If I cleanly removed that one person’s fear—

“...It’s nothing.”

“What? What the hell are you—”

“It’s just... nothing. It’s not a living thing, it’s just... no, everyone, stop. You don’t have to attack.”

“It’s rushing us like this!”

“No, I’m telling you it’s nothing. Stop!”

And really—strangely enough—

Emotions were infectious.