Park Ahjeong clutched her head and forced herself to sit up.
“Ugh…”
It felt like her skull was splitting open.
Dizziness and nausea surged up all at once.
Every corner of her body throbbed as if it had been beaten with a baseball bat.
She immediately checked her physical condition.
No fractures… thankfully.
Her muscles and organs were intact.
Just some bruises and mild concussion symptoms.
Surviving a direct hit from an A+ rank monster with only this much damage was nothing short of a miracle.
If I hadn’t deployed the barrier in time… I would’ve died instantly.
Park Ahjeong steadied herself and slowly stood up.
Only then did the surrounding scenery come into view.
“What in the world is this…!”
A field covered in pure white snow.
Park Ahjeong quickly realized what they were.
“These are… spores?”
The spores that the Cordyceps monster had spewed.
They lay scattered everywhere in the form of various insects.
Mantises, beetles, crickets, giant hornets, grasshoppers, ants, and more.
It looked like an insect exhibition made entirely of spores.
At that moment.
“Oh! Professor! You’re finally awake!”
A muscular man carrying an axe on his shoulder ran over, waving enthusiastically.
Park Ahjeong immediately fired off a question.
“What on earth happened? What are all these spores?”
The man laughed heartily and answered.
“An A+ rank hunter joined us at the perfect moment! Thanks to that, we’re all still alive!”
“An A+ rank hunter? Who…?”
Just then, a shadow fell over the two of them.
A sand carpet carrying the injured was descending from the sky.
“We’ve finally arrived! The red mage sent the return signal!”
The injured who disembarked from the carpet looked around in astonishment.
“W-What is all this?”
“Is everyone really safe…?”
“Why are there mushroom-spore-like things on the ground…?”
“You all took down five A+ rank monsters?”
Questions erupted from all sides.
The muscular man cleared his throat loudly and began to speak.
“Remember that young man who saved us earlier? That guy climbed onto the centipede monster’s body and just started sprinting, like a damn soccer player! Then he BAM! punched the centipede right in the head and the head just exploded! Yeah, yeah, we were shocked too!”
“That strength was insane, at least equal to mine, maybe more. Anyway, that wasn’t even the end. Suddenly, some kind of white branch thing sprouted from the centipede’s head…”
The muscular man explained everything that had happened without missing a single detail.
How a man named Cha Hasang knocked out an A+ rank monster with one punch.
How pure white Cordyceps sprouted from the giant centipede’s head.
How the spores scattered by the Cordyceps revived insect-type monsters.
How they were nearly annihilated while surrounded by those insect monsters.
The survivors blinked in disbelief.
Then Professor Park Ahjeong asked.
“So who exactly is the A+ rank hunter that cleaned up this mess?”
“You know, that rookie who appeared a few months ago! Rank 12 among A+ ranks, the Sword Demon of Ravianglily!”
“The Sword Demon of Ravianglily…”
A comet-like rising star who effortlessly cleared high-difficulty requests.
Yet a veiled hunter who never showed their face in the media.
The Sword Demon of Ravianglily.
Park Ahjeong had heard that name from Bae Min-ji several times.
Haa… Another troublesome person has entered A+ rank.
They call her the Sword Demon of Ravianglily… I heard she beat Cerberus to death with her bare hands in the underground mall at Bupyeong Station.
Right, and the strange thing was… she was with some F-rank hunter. Didn’t seem like a porter.
That hunter’s name was…
Cha Hasang.
The F-rank hunter who had been with the Sword Demon of Ravianglily was none other than Cha Hasang.
The abnormal strength Cha Hasang had displayed.
And his close relationship with an A+ rank hunter.
These were things even the Hunter Association and the Hunter Oversight Bureau had never heard of.
Cha Hasang’s actions felt like a computer bug, an unintended anomaly in the system.
Soon, Park Ahjeong asked another question.
“Where is the Sword Demon of Ravianglily now?”
“She was standing with that guy in front of the fallen centipede earlier… Huh? Where’d they go?”
Only one person stood before the giant centipede.
Just Cha Hasang.
***
It was noisy behind me.
The injured who had been evacuated seemed to be rejoining the group.
I ignored it and continued what I was doing.
“Let’s see…”
The giant centipede’s body had turned into a mass of pure white spores.
I extended both hands toward it.
Fwoosh—
The carapace scattered like cotton candy, transmitting a fluffy, cushiony sensation to my fingertips.
It felt like digging through the inside of a comforter.
A moment later, I pulled the loot out of the spore pile.
First was a vial containing rainbow-colored liquid.
Flutter—
-<Elixir> / Consumable / A+
A blessed potion made from the sap of the World Tree.
Heals all diseases and injuries, fully restores stamina and mana.
“To the weary, vigor; to the suffering, rest.” – The First Alchemist, Celyne–
A legendary potion that can cleanly cure even incurable diseases untreatable by modern medicine.
Among hunters, carrying a single bottle of Elixir is equivalent to carrying an extra life.
This is the real jackpot.
Next was a long spear with a black-brown blade split into two prongs.
-<Poison Fang Spear of the Insect King Legion Great Warrior> / Polearm / A+
A spear crafted from the venomous fangs of the Insect King Legion Great Warrior, Giant Centipede.
The venom dripping from the spear tip poisons on the first strike, paralyzes on the second, and kills on the third.
– Attack Power +2700
– Skill ‘Three-Claw Strike’ usable
An A+ rank weapon.
Not bad, actually pretty great.
On top of that, a handful of top-grade mana stones came out.
Even a single piece of these could buy an entire house in Seoul.
I shoved all the mana stones into my inventory.
But the unexpected gain was something else.
Ding-dong!
<Essence of White Branch Cluster Fungus / Essence / A+>
An essence containing the power of the White Branch Cluster Fungus.
Absorbing this essence grants the skill ‘Cordyceps’.
Cordyceps <A+>: Releases a massive amount of White Branch Cluster Fungus spores.
Insects infected by these spores will move according to the skill owner’s will.
This skill is effective only on insect-type monsters.
Jackpot.
A skill that controls insects might only be useful in very specific situations.
But I could walk around with an army of bugs like some comic book insect manipulator.
And I happen to know one place filled with exactly those “specific situations.”
I whispered softly.
“When exploring inside the warehouse, what was the most annoying and exhausting thing?”
A tiny voice answered from my shoulder.
Jeanne, who had used her miniaturization skill, whispered from atop my shoulder.
“As Master instructed, since the goal was exploration, I avoided unnecessary combat as much as possible… yet it was still difficult. They overwhelm with sheer numbers…!!”
Jeanne answered without a moment’s hesitation.
Even the veteran warriors Yi Seong-gye and Cheok Junkyeong, who had experienced every kind of battle in life, struggled against the insect swarms.
The insects teeming inside the warehouse are definitely bug-type.
In other words.
This new skill might actually work.
A theme park crawling with insect-type monsters.
Using a skill that controls insect-type monsters in a place like that?
I wanted to jump straight back into the warehouse and test it right now.
But.
…Next time.
Clearing the dungeon comes first.
Because.
Ding-dong!
<Please promptly carry out His Majesty the Sorcerer Emperor ‘T’’s imperial decree!>
<Failure to fulfill the Sorcerer Emperor’s decree will result in revocation of Warehouse Keeper privileges.>
<Morgue’s Magical Warehouse Management Regulation Article 249, Clause 87: Warehouse Keepers whose privileges are revoked will be ‘eliminated’ to ensure secrecy.>
<Would you like to view detailed data on the 39 methods of eliminating a Warehouse Keeper… (Y/N)>
The system window was throwing a fit.
At that moment.
GRRRRRRR—
The sand parted on both sides, revealing a massive gate.
It was the gate leading to the next section.
WOOOOOOONG—
A swirling subspace of red light could be seen within.
“Well… let’s wrap this up quickly and go home. There’s a lot I want to try.”
“Yes, Master.”
The moment I was about to leap into the gate.
“Wait, Hasang student! Hold on!”
Professor Park Ahjeong came running, waving her hand.
She reached me in an instant and stared straight at me.
“?”
Her eyes were trembling slightly.
She clearly had something she wanted to say.
Finally.
“Here. Take this.”
What Professor Park Ahjeong held out was a business card.
She took out a pen, quickly scribbled a phone number on it, and handed it over.
“Um… I already have your number, Professor.”
“That’s my work phone! I turn it off on weekends. This is my personal number. You can call anytime.”
Professor Park Ahjeong smiled as she spoke.
“Hasang-gun feels… kind of like a bug.”
“?”
“Ah, I mean that in a good way.”
Is that really used in a good way?
Professor Park Ahjeong added with a serious expression.
“Make sure you survive. Got it?”
“Yes. You too, Professor.”
With that brief farewell, I leaped into the gate.
At that moment, I thought I faintly heard Professor Park Ahjeong’s voice.
“Survive no matter what… my small, precious graduate student…”
Ding-dong!
<Entering the 2nd Hierarchy, “Safety Needs Tier – Second Section”!>
My vision, paralyzed by the mana storm, gradually returned.
I immediately scanned the surroundings.
“…Where the hell is this now?”
Mold-covered wallpaper and a ceiling dripping with rainwater.
A narrow bed barely big enough to stretch one’s legs. Old civil service exam prep books on a worn-out desk.
It was a one-room goshiwon.
WHOOOOO—!
Rain and wind whistled through the cracked window.
The view outside the window was far more familiar than the inside of the goshiwon.
A city made up entirely of goshiwons, the very scenery of Noryangjin.
But the problem was the identity of the things… no, the people roaming Noryangjin’s streets.
[Groooooooan—]
[110000—]
[Uwooooooo—]
Cloudy pupils. Blackened, necrotic skin. Shuffling steps that dragged along the ground.
I looked at them and muttered.
…Zombie apocalypse this time?