Only then did Choi Haegang turn his head. He looked no different from before.
A somewhat screw-loose blankness.
But at the look in his eyes, as if gauging something, Yeom Hajae grew suddenly uneasy.
Choi Haegang gazed at the flinching Yeom Hajae with an impassive face. He knew the reason behind that reaction.
He's hoping Kim Cheolsu is alive.
He reported it flatly.
“He's dead.”
“…”
Yeom Hajae's face froze on the spot.
Yeom Hajae, who'd been blank for a moment, bit down hard on his lip. Then he staggered over to Choi Haegang.
With a forceful grip, he seized the shoulder of Choi Haegang, who looked down at him expressionlessly.
A tremor transmitted through the gripped shoulder.
As Choi Haegang looked for a moment at the trembling hand, Yeom Hajae asked in a low voice.
“Are you sure? That he's dead…”
Choi Haegang recalled the man's final moments.
The blood flowing from his chest.
The side pierced by the fork.
The legs snapped and dangling.
And last, just before being eaten, the blood-soaked face, smiling.
That was…
Bizarre.
It was distinctly different from all the moments of death Choi Haegang had witnessed up to now.
The moment of being brutally killed. Isn't it generally the case that a person who senses their own death is gripped by terror? Freezing, crying, thrashing, or recoiling in shock…
All humans are like that. Probably even Yeom Hajae would be, in his final moment.
Someone who dies with such a satisfied expression…
“The body?”
“…”
He hadn't seen it.
But having gone into the monster's belly in such a battered state, the chances of even an awakener being alive were slim.
Choi Haegang judged.
Even if the man were alive by some chance, voicing that possibility was dangerous.
Look at that desperate face.
If there was even the slightest chance he was alive, Yeom Hajae would charge out this very instant.
Recklessly, to save him.
There were still many survivors here. He couldn't let Yeom Hajae do anything rash.
So.
“He got eaten by the monster, so there's no body.”
For everyone's sake, it was better to tell him he was dead.
As for how the man who'd vanished after making himself bait would feel about it—he didn't know.
“No way…”
Yeom Hajae's face twisted completely. As if wanting to hide the turmoil of his emotions, he dropped his head low.
Choi Haegang quietly watched.
Yeom Hajae.
An acquaintance of his who, though he had no memory of it, had supposedly been the next-door hyung he'd known since childhood.
He'd gone into dungeons with this person over the past ten years.
In that time, he'd watched many deaths alongside him. Cases where someone Yeom Hajae tried to save had died weren't rare, either.
And yet, this was the first time Yeom Hajae had clung to it like this.
He'd thought he knew about as much as there was to know about Yeom Hajae.
But it seemed that had been his misconception.
What part of that man had stirred the leader this much?
…
There's no need to wonder now. He's already dead.
About the time Choi Haegang was clearing away the stray thoughts, Yeom Hajae jerked his head up.
“Where's Minjun?”
“…”
Choi Haegang thought.
He's probably hiding well somewhere.
“If it's that hyung, isn't he hiding well somewhere?”
The maknae answered, but his attitude was likewise dismissive.
“Still, the fact that he hasn't come back yet…”
Yeom Hajae belatedly put on a worried face.
“Hiding's his specialty. He probably got scared because of the monster.”
It was the kind of conversation that would've made Kim Minjun angry and demand to know what they took him for, but fortunately, he wasn't present.
To cut to the conclusion, under Yeom Hajae's lead, the maknae ended up following the leader to go look for Kim Minjun.
As it happened, the monster had stepped out for a moment to dump the fragments while cleaning the wrecked kitchen.
The timid maknae was reluctant to set out, saying there was no telling when the monster might reappear.
He grumbled, full of complaint.
“He'll come back on his own, so why…”
But.
“…”
“…I'll go.”
He was forced out, reluctantly, by Yeom Hajae's pressure.
The eyes of Choi Haegang, left alone, sank.
It was clear Yeom Hajae had another purpose, but in any case, since he was setting out to find a missing comrade, Choi Haegang had no grounds to stop him.
Before long, the two really did return with Kim Minjun. They said he'd been lying unconscious in a corner.
Choi Haegang laid Kim Minjun down in the remaining spot and glanced sidelong at the leader, who sat beside him.
He was staring blankly at the blood-stained button on his palm, endlessly. It seemed he'd picked it up along with Kim Minjun.
Turning his eyes away again, Choi Haegang slapped Kim Minjun's cheek.
“Ngh…”
Kim Minjun, who'd been groaning, opened his eyes in a daze.
“Wake up.”
Smack!
“Ngh, I-I'm up-”
“Wake up.”
Smack!
“Ow!”
Kim Minjun bolted upright.
“I said I'm up!”
“Keep it down. We're still in the dungeon.”
Choi Haegang reprimanded him coldly. Kim Minjun, about to protest on reflex, met eyes with Yeom Hajae beside him and shut his mouth sheepishly.
“Minjun, you okay? What happened?”
“Ah… I ended up hiding nearby, somehow…”
Kim Minjun, explaining in a hoarse voice, suddenly stopped. He rolled his eyes for a moment as if recalling something, then looked around.
It was only after examining the faces of the people around him that Kim Minjun asked, puzzled.
“By the way, where's Cheolsu?”
An unexpected name came up. Choi Haegang's eyebrow twitched.
Yeom Hajae, who'd been slumped, asked in surprise.
“What? You saw him?”
“Yeah… we were together right up until I passed out.”
“Tell me. What happened?”
At this rare side of the leader, Kim Minjun's expression turned sour.
“After the leader and the maknae left, I was trying to come back here…”
The explanation that followed. They were events the other three hadn't properly seen, busy fleeing.
“…and just like that, I lost consciousness.”
After the story ended, Choi Haegang sank into thought.
He hadn't been caught and eaten by the monster right away. To think there'd been a chance to escape.
And.
“He collapsed?”
“Yeah. My eyes were closed, so I couldn't really see what was going on.”
Scouting had turned up no monsters besides the giant. Don't tell me it was that awakener?
“So where is this Cheolsu guy?”
“…”
Silence.
In that brief interval, the sounds of survivors weeping in hushed breaths and the monster clattering dishes drifted over.
The guild members, each lost in their own thoughts, none of them spoke, but from that reaction, Kim Minjun guessed.
He's dead.
That's when it happened.
The maknae let out a voice full of doubt.
“Hold on. An empty glass jar? There wasn't anything like that where I was lying.”
“Huh?”
“Now that you mention it…”
Yeom Hajae nodded.
The doubt that had been focused on the reason Kim Minjun collapsed shifted elsewhere.
The truth was, in fact, simple.
After knocking Kim Minjun out, Seo Sinwoo had walked back into the jar on his own.
Then, after the monster took Seo Sinwoo out, it set the glass jar somewhere else.
That was why there'd been no empty glass jar around when Kim Minjun was found.
But the four of them never imagined that Seo Sinwoo had walked into the jaws of death of his own accord.
Naturally, their reasoning veered off in the wrong direction.
“Did that guy move me?”
“Don't tell me that's why he got caught again…”
The maknae shut his mouth. As he was speaking, it had started to feel like he was blaming Kim Minjun.
But that conjecture had already seeped into everyone's hearts like an established fact.
Choi Haegang thought.
He was a man who'd dodged even his attacks with a grinning face. That he'd been helplessly eaten without using his ability even once was strange.
Even while watching that smiling face to the very end, Choi Haegang couldn't shake the suspicion that the man had some scheme.
What if he'd lured the monster to shield Kim Minjun?
And then exhausted his strength and gotten caught with no other choice…
On top of that, the man had been worn down from squaring off against him.
Choi Haegang's brow furrowed faintly.
But even if this conjecture were true, the question in his heart wasn't cleanly resolved.
Why on earth had he saved a Hunter? In the face of death, why had he smiled with such a refreshed look?
To save the Hunter and comrades who'd lunged to kill him—why…
It was the moment the question was only deepening.
“Meeeow—.”
A cat, appearing from somewhere, darted swiftly out of the shadows.
“Gah. Kitty! You can't go!”
The maknae chased after the cat. Had he grown fond of it at some point?
Cheolsu…
Yeom Hajae, recalling that it was the cat the dead man had brought, grew gloomy.
Minjun definitely owes his life to Cheolsu too. And that cat as well…
Yeom Hajae dropped his head low.
The image of someone sacrificing himself without hesitation was Yeom Hajae's ideal itself. Chewing over and over on the man who'd vanished, a blind emotion had sprouted in his heart before he knew it.
Just then, the maknae who'd gone out after the cat suddenly poked his face in.
“Hyungs!”
“Hm?”
At the loud shout, everyone's attention focused on him. Just as Choi Haegang was about to warn him not to make noise—
The words that followed left them speechless.
“An escape Gate opened!”
“…!!”
They hadn't registered it, each lost in their own thoughts, but looking back, at some point the monster's sounds had stopped being audible.
Realizing that, the Hunters dashed out at once.
And they witnessed it.
The enormous hole that had formed where the monster should have been.
The cat that emerged from the Gate landed lightly on the ground.
Outside, the sun was already rising.
Stretching its body in the sunlight, the cat surveyed its surroundings.
A not-yet-dry trail of blood near the Gate led off somewhere.
The cat put its nose to the remaining bloodstains and sniffed.
Sniff sniff.
Its green eyes fixed on the dark back alley the bloodstains led into.
“Nya…”
The cat stepped into the alley with nimble strides.
A short while later.
A familiar back came into the cat's view.
The man everyone caught up in the Gate believed to be dead—Seo Sinwoo.
Right now he was…
“Huff, huff…”
Crawling along the alley floor. Every spot he passed left a thick trail of blood.
The cat, having caught up, chattered at his side.
“You're gonna die soon, meow. Don't push yourself, meow… You're pitiful to look at, meow.”
Seo Sinwoo gritted his teeth. Honestly, he felt like death, but.
I'm not gonna die…
There'd never been a day he found this cat as detestable as today.
“Instead of saying stuff like that… cough!”
A treatment team, or…
Blood welled up and he couldn't finish the rest.
“Hoo…”
Drained of strength, Seo Sinwoo leaned his back against the wall.
“What are you doing, meow? No time to rest, meow.”
It was hard to lift even a single finger, yet the cat hooked its claws into his pants. With his senses gone, it didn't even register as a prickle.
Just as he was trying to force his unresponsive body to move anyway, footsteps trudged through the space that should've been quiet.
Two people.
The cat quietly came to Seo Sinwoo's side and hid itself.
Seo Sinwoo prepared to attack.
The Sealing was over, so he could use his ability again.
He pulled up as much of his ability as he possibly could. Just as he was about to cut off the opponent's life before they could even register it—
He realized the approaching footsteps were tracing a familiar pattern.
“Boss…?”
