It was a hand signal.
Since Oh Song-hui was looking straight ahead, 11 o’clock was fortunately in a
direction that was moving further away.
Mun Gi-jeong carefully approached the ridge.
Kim Song-cheol and Ser Gang-jin followed behind him.
Kim Song-cheol walked almost as if he were crawling, keeping his eyes only on
Mun Gi-jeong’s back.
After arriving at the ridge, they sat in a line and leaned their backs against
it.
Mun Gi-jeong peeked his eyes out over
the ridge.
Kim Song-cheol was next.
A valley deepened below the ridge.
Four hunters were walking along the bottom of the valley.
They looked like people from South America, but their clothing and weapons were
things that could not be found on Earth.
A sword with teeth standing like a saw blade.
Oddly shaped throwing weapons.
Even a massive greatsword.
Their disheveled hair and dirty skin provided a small glimpse into their way of
life.
‘They’re Quesha, tsk.’
Kim Song-cheol clicked his tongue
inwardly and hid his body behind the ridge again.
Those hunters called themselves Quesha.
If translated, it would have a similar
meaning to Hunter.
Unlike the hunters of Earth who mainly hunted monsters, the
Quesha did not place limits on their prey.
With their bellicose nature and low moral standards combined, they were hunters
treated as human butchers in the Dungeon.
“They’re gone.”
Ser Gang-jin, who had been watching the
Quesha last, spoke in a low voice.
The image of them walking along the straight valley and disappearing around the
corner was drawn in his mind.
“Have you ever met the
Quesha?”
Only then did Kim Song-cheol speak up.
It was a question directed at Mun Gi-jeong.
“This is the second time I’ve seen
them.”
“But you’ve never fought them?”
“Yes.”
According to the Rules of Engagement,
prioritizing the avoidance of combat with hunters who are not monsters is the
first objective.
However, if they were determined to start a fight, it would be difficult to
avoid, and the Quesha would likely attack as soon as they discovered a hunter
from Earth.
The reason, as expected, was Points.
The structure was such that the fact that killing a hunter provided more Points
than a monster could not help but provoke hostile hunters, including the
Quesha.
“Since we spotted them first, it’s the lesser of two evils.”
Kim Song-cheol said.
“That’s right. If the other side had spotted us first, it would have already… been a mess.”
“We should make escaping this Dungeon
our objective.”
Mun Gi-jeong nodded at Oh Song-hui’s words.
“There’s no need to risk our lives
for nothing.”
The Quesha were strong.
To begin with, they were a warrior race, so their practical experience went
without saying, and their bodies were also somewhat different from ordinary
humans.
Speed and power bursting forth from powerful muscles and tendons.
An animalistic sense for combat.
Adding to that a culture that did not fear death, they were an opponent that
many hunters preferred to avoid as their number one priority.
“Since those guys went north, let’s circle around from the south.”
The average area of an F-rank Dungeon is
about 25 square kilometers.
It varies depending on the case, but it is generally composed of a square
roughly 5 kilometers long and wide.
It was wide in a sense, but it wasn’t as if the probability of running into
them was zero.
For now, the best course of action was to move in the opposite direction as
much as possible.
Team 25A moved their footsteps toward the south.
They pushed through the brush and went up and down the ridges.
The swordsmen had stamina to spare, but the mages were gradually getting
exhausted.
Sweat also formed on Kim Song-cheol’s forehead and soon flowed down his cheeks
in streams.
He had continued physical training while at the Training Academy,
but it seemed it was still insufficient.
Kyaaaak!
Just then, monsters appeared while
pushing through the brush.
It was a pack of monsters of a similar type.
They had four arms that looked like awls, and their size was nearly as large as
a calf.
There were three of them.
The monsters swung their arms and struck at the sides of the hunters.
Ser Gang-jin and Oh Song-hui quickly stepped forward and blocked the path
leading to the mages.
Kagang!
Ser Gang-jin’s sword collided with an
awl-like arm, sending sparks flying.
Because Ser Gang-jin carried more weight, he was not pushed back.
Instead, the insect’s arm was bounced away and bent at a bizarre angle.
There were still three arms left.
Ser Gang-jin swung his sword with a confident expression.
In the meantime, Kim Song-cheol cast the Magic Missile magic.
Magic Missile is fast to cast and has decent power.
It could be called the ‘basic attack’ of a 1st Circle Mage.
Shuuk!
Puck!
The monster hit by the Magic Missile faltered, and luckily, it collapsed to the side.
Its center of gravity collapsed, and it lost its footing.
The attack magic of Kim Song-cheol and Mun Gi-jeong descended upon it.
The monster was helpless against the magical hacking and slashing.
After handling one insect, Kim Song-cheol quickly scanned the battlefield to
help the swordsmen.
The Magic Circle that had been glowing as if a Magic Missile was about to fly
out at any moment simply dispersed.
Kim Song-cheol had canceled the casting.
‘They are doing well. There’s no need for me to interfere.’
Oh Song-hui, who used concise Swordsmanship, penetrated the arm’s defense and took off its head, and Ser
Gang-jin rendered all the arms useless before slashing the head and chest area.
Just because they looked disgusting didn’t mean their combat power was higher.
Regardless, they were F-rank monsters.
In a one-on-one match, the hunter held the upper hand in most cases.
“Whew, let’s take a break and go.”
After the battle ended, Mun Gi-jeong
made a decision.
It was time to rest their stamina and also replenish calories.
Team 25A settled down in a spot slightly away from the monsters’ corpses.
It was a place advantageous for combat because it was easy to secure a field of
vision and the ground was high.
The hunters each sat with their backs against trees and munched on high-calorie
energy bars.
“I want to eat Yeoptteok.”
Oh Song-hui suddenly muttered.
At those words, the team members let out a chuckle.
Yeoptteok?
Bringing it in itself is possible.
While firearms are filtered out during transmission, food items are usually allowed through.
The problem is the smell.
Spreading a strong food smell in a Dungeon is no different from a suicidal act.
This is because monsters have a much more sensitive sense of smell than humans.
“Eat until your stomach bursts once we get out.”
Ser Gang-jin gave a rebuttal that wasn’t really a rebuttal.
He was already taking out his second energy bar.
Perhaps because of his large build, his eating speed was also fast.
“Do you find that delicious?”
“It is delicious, though?”
“Eat a lot then.”
Useless small talk went back and forth.
Kim Song-cheol wiped his sweat and chewed on his energy bar with a vacant
expression.
He didn’t have much of an appetite, but he was stuffing it in because he felt
like he would collapse if he didn’t eat.
‘The mountain terrain is more of a
problem than the monsters, honestly.’
Because the uphills and downhills
repeated, the stamina consumption was severe.
If the rank of the Dungeon goes up, even more rugged terrain than this appears,
and there are cases where one must deal with monsters without rest.
No matter how much a mage, who is nothing more than an ordinary human, trains
their stamina, it doesn’t mean they can possess a body of steel.
The solution for mages was, as expected, magic.
There were quite a few spells that reduced the stamina consumed for simple
movement as much as possible.
‘It would be manageable if I were even
just at the 3rd Circle.’
Particularly the magic classified as a
3rd Circle spell, Mana Stride.
It is a magic that assists the mage’s movement and consumes Mana instead of
stamina.
It can’t replace all stamina with Mana, but it has a fairly excellent exchange
rate.
Especially in the case of someone like Kim Song-cheol, who has more Mana than
other mages, it could be used very usefully.
“Shall we get up?”
Mun Gi-jeong, who had been almost
half-lying down, raised his body.
It seemed they had rested for about 30
minutes.
It was thanks to the swordsmen keeping watch the whole time.
Even though they
had been chatting constantly, that is.
“Let’s go. We have to find the
portal.”
Kim Song-cheol also stood up from his spot.
After resting quite a bit, his stamina had recovered a lot.
Team 25A began to move. Identifying the direction was, as expected, the role of
the leader, Mun Gi-jeong.
Looking around and getting his bearings was his job.
“Let’s go this way.”
In this kind of forest terrain, keeping
one’s direction was a very important task.
This was because the primary goal from the start was to find the portal.
Not searching the same terrain twice, and not getting lost.
Most things were decided along with the search direction.
‘His sense of direction is good.’
Whenever Mun Gi-jeong identified the direction, Kim Song-cheol would also estimate the direction in his head.
Every time, Mun Gi-jeong came up with the same answer as Kim Song-cheol.
It seemed like he could be trusted and relied upon.
“Not that way. Over here.”
Mun Gi-jeong explored the Dungeon while
also correcting the direction for Oh Song-hui, who was leading the way.
They experienced a few monster ambushes and crossed countless ridges.
Around the time Kim Song-cheol, for whom the Dungeon was a first, had become
somewhat accustomed to it.
“Kh-aaagh…”
A groan was heard from somewhere.
It would have been better if it were the cry of a monster.
The members of Team 25A looked at each other with confused expressions.
Mun Gi-jeong sent a hand signal.
It was an instruction for Ser Gang-jin to check it out.
Ser Gang-jin began to move cautiously while holding his sword.
He pushed through the brush, passed trees, and steadily moved forward.
The Team 25A members followed quietly behind him.
They didn’t know what might be there or what the situation was.
They had to maintain cover as much as possible.
Ser Gang-jin walked for about 20 meters and then stopped.
He looked down into a hollow.
The groans were coming from there.
After checking the surroundings, Ser Gang-jin motioned toward the team members.
It meant for them to come over.
Kim Song-cheol approached the hollow with the team members. Looking down, a man
was lying there covered in blood.
The depth was approximately 3 meters.
It was a hollow that looked just like an antlion’s trap.
“…”
The man’s consciousness was faint.
He only let out meaningless groans while feeling pain with his eyes closed.
He had large wounds on his legs and abdomen.
It seemed the bleeding had beenroughly stopped, but the blood already lost was substantial.
“He’s German, isn’t he?”
Oh Song-hui said.
A clear German national flag was attached to his chest. Just like Team 25A had the Korean flag
on their right arms.
“There’s a treaty, so we should
save him, right?”
As Ser Gang-jin tried to jump down as if
it were natural, Kim Song-cheol quickly grabbed his arm.
[Listen to me carefully from now on.This is an ambush.]
Kim Song-cheol’s voice echoed in the team members’ heads.
It was the Magic Message magic.
The team members’ bodies froze for a moment as they waited for Kim Song-cheol’s
next words.
[With my abilities, I could only sense one. There are probably three more nearby. The probability of them being Quesha
is high.]
Just now, Kim Song-cheol had felt an artificial flow of Mana.
Above a tree about ten steps away.
There was definitely a hunter there.
The German was bait.
The only ones who would use a hunter as bait to set an ambush were the Quesha.
Recognizing that fact, the expressions of the team members changed instantly.
[W-what should we do?]
Mun Gi-jeong’s Magic Message flew in immediately.
Kim Song-cheol glanced at him.
Extreme tension was reflected in his eyes.
‘Tsk.’
It didn’t seem like the time to trust Mun Gi-jeong.
Kim Song-cheol cast the Magic Message magic again.
[They don’t know we’ve noticed the ambush yet. Everyone knows the Rules of Engagement for hostile hunters, right?]
The other team members expressed their affirmation with their eyes.
Chapter 1 of the Rules of Engagement recommends avoiding combat.
However, when combat becomes unavoidable, the rules in Chapter 2 are followed.
That rule is to prioritize the removal of the threat above all else.
In other words, it means to kill them by any means necessary.
Everyone had been strictly trained on that part.
There would be no hesitation.
[Don’t be nervous. Even if they set the ambush, the situation is advantageous for us. Because we noticed it in advance.
First, we induce the opponent’s carelessness. Oh Song-hui, go down below. Andbe ready to spring back up immediately.]
Kim Song-cheol’s Magic Message flew in rapidly.
Even at this very moment, time was passing.
If they dragged out the time too long, the opponents might notice that
something was wrong.
—