195 – Two Challengers
After that, we had an hour-long meeting about Nargul’s dungeon. As expected, the common opinion was that the ‘Bone Dancer’ should jump out as soon as it is discovered.
‘I’ll have to clear it at least once. Then you’ll know that you don’t have to be so vigilant…’
Yeon-hee may have thought about it too, but in fact, when the dancer appeared, it was just a matter of throwing the summoned beasts one by one before they reached the center of our formation.
Not me, of course. Dumb or the late ones who joined the Lizard unit will have to work hard. Because I’m precious
“But we can stay out all night, right? I think it would be nice to buy all the items together.”
Joo-ah was reluctant to sit down, but she said with an expression of no choice.
“I have one tent. It’s enough for 10 people.”
“Why are you holding the 10-player version?”
“The giant given to me by the man who walked around the dungeon for the first time.”
“… Oh, really! Don’t take that kind of thing lightly.”
“I don’t take it anymore! But it’s new, so I throw it away…”
“… I need to prepare other bedding or personal items. The distance to the exit is not far compared to other dungeons, but they say it’s hard to find the way because of the dead air.”
“A day’s worth of food, right? My inventory is full, so I can’t even add more.”
“Yes, yes. One day is enough.”
‘I don’t think I’ll be sleeping on the first basement floor, but I’m in favor of being prepared.’
As the habitat of the undead, Nargul’s dungeon is filled with scams. So, like a lizard wetland, as soon as you enter it, your stats will drop to a certain level, and even your physical recovery will go down drastically. Because it was a tricky place in many ways, the meeting had no choice but to be long.
On the way home after parting with the party members. Yeon-hee kept checking me out of the corner of her eye and raising the corners of her mouth.
‘Hmm?’
Of course, I don’t know why. I just want to feel good, so I get excited too.
“Shall we just walk?”
“Tak…?”
Running through a dungeon and going for a walk?
I threw a questionable bump, but she just laughed. Still, I would have to walk an hour. Hmm…
I pressed her hood down a little deeper and set off together.
Talk Talk-
I even patted my head once. What is so good about it, Yeon-hee continues to smile. It’s hard for other people to see that kind of smile.
‘… Has improved a lot.’
There were people following me at a certain distance from the gate.
They appear to be press reporters, but the number has increased to five. I’ve been stalking Yeon-hee for days, wondering who to meet, but there’s no way anything will come out.
Yeon-hee played a video of a familiar man while holding hands.
“Wow! Hyun Joong-Gil said he caught another monster. Venamos Behemoth? The name is also strange. Who the hell came up with a name like this?”
‘Originally, noblemen called scholars tend to complicate names.’
On her way home, she would read to her about hot events or show them videos.
One of them was a video in which Hyeon Joong-gil splits the giant hippo-like monster with the name I just mentioned with a single knife.
‘It’s beautiful…’
From noble mtl dot com
The ideal I was pursuing was over there. It feels like the world has stopped. In the stopped world, only Hyeon Joong-gil and the united sword danced leisurely.
He was so noble and pure that we even stopped walking.
“Wowaaa! I, this person, have never seen a video before. Wasn’t that monster the highest level? I heard that it’s the closest thing to a giant monster, all at once. Wow…”
‘It looks like he’s adjusted his strength a bit… It’s not like he’s using the extreme.’
There was a relationship with me. The day the decisive battle with the giant monster took place in the middle of Seoul.
The swordsmanship he showed wasn’t that great.
‘… Who wants a monster.’
But at the end of the video, the image of him wiping his mouth with his hand broke my heart. How long do you have left… 2 Years? 3 Years?
I don’t remember exactly, but I hoped that the speeding up of the clocks around the world wouldn’t apply to you.
Yeon-hee continued to talk afterward, as if she had to tell me everything about the world to clear her mind. Thanks to this, the pieces of memories that came to mind after hearing the keywords were piled up layer by layer.
On the way home, halfway through, I met a few people who said they were fans of Yeonhee.
Although Yeon-hee was embarrassed, she somehow even signed her autograph, but she honestly thought that using Lee Yeon-hee as her sperm was like her.
“I was thankful at Guchang-ro back then. I didn’t know who she was because she was wearing a hoodie, but I only recently found out that it was Yeon-hee, so I’m finally saying hello. Thank you.”
“Yes? Ah- no. Not much…”
One of them was the one we helped in the Dungeon Break with the mouthpiece where ‘Speaker’ and ‘Spore Snail’ appeared.
The limp seems to be an aftereffect of that time, but seeing that the energy of magic has subsided a lot, it seems that I am no longer working as a hunter.
After breaking up with him, Yeon-hee, who was walking on the street again, said, “But it’s worthwhile…”.
I expressed my affirmation with a small clenched teeth.
Yeon-hee, wearing the hood even more deeply, couldn’t see properly, but she didn’t seem to worry about falling because I was there.
Is it greedy to hope that this path I walk with her will continue forever as I take her step by step following my lead?
* * *
A few days before Ilwol and Lee Yeonhee walked down the street together.
“Aww…!”
Fluff-!
“·······.”
Another life was scattered in the unique space where the golden mimic ‘Tania’ lived.
“After-“
It’s something I’ve done for countless hours, and I’ve lived my life thinking of it as my only job. It’s full of fulfillment because it’s for the great being she serves, but nothing particularly new.
The golden Mimic Tania indifferently looked down at the elf, who was splattered with red blood on the glittering floor.
This so-called ‘selection’ was a really reasonable system that randomly received challengers and rewarded them appropriately when they won.
Knowledge of this karma accumulated over a long period of time was passed down to each race, so there were no tricks that Mimics could use.
A test that does not force a challenge, but only gives you a choice.
The rewards are sweet, but failure has a cold side that is directly related to death. However, since that is also the choice of the challengers, there should be no complaints.
However, those who failed in the challenge all look at themselves with eyes that seem to be expressing resentment.
Like a dark elf looking up at himself right now, with all the blood vessels in his eyes bursting.
Is it because it is a harp mixed with human blood? It was closer to the face of a human man than an elf. The tips of the ears were also slightly blunt.
And that face somehow reminded me of someone.
“January…”
Even the golden Mimic Tania herself couldn’t figure out why she thought of the Skeleton Soldier when she saw the Dark Elf.
Actually, her appearance may not be important. When I just see the collapsed figure of the challenger, I think of a skeleton that had been weathered and scattered.
“January- January-Moon-“
For some reason, whenever she spat that name out of her mouth, an unknown tickling feeling bloomed in her chest.
Even Tania, who had lived for a long time, had never experienced such an unfamiliar sensation, so the name of that unusual monster kept lingering around her lips.
However, it was something unnatural to the brown mimic ‘Tiny’, who had returned to her space after fishing and was staring at her owner.
‘Is something strange about the owner these days? What is it? What? There seems to be something I don’t know.’
Except for fishing, Tania and Tiny stick together like a thread and a needle. That’s why the brown Mimic Tiny couldn’t help but wonder.
“Tiny, I need to take a break.”
It was because his master had been doing things he hadn’t done in his lifetime, like now.
“Ugh… Master?! I can’t take it anymore. What the hell are you doing? This is already the 10th time! You haven’t taken a single moment off in all these years!”
His use of a language that was ridiculously clumsy when talking with hunters was extremely fluent when using the native language he created with his master.
“Huh, Tiny. Are you dissatisfied with the fact that you are the only one resting?”
Tania asked while looking at the brown box, her only subordinate.
“It can’t be! I was born only for my master! I have no disrespect like that!”
“…Then would you like to go too?”
“Yes? Where are you talking about?”
The brown Mimic Tiny was greatly taken aback by the owner’s unexpected question. Seeing that, Tania felt a bit cheerful, and the corners of her mouth went up slightly.
Tania didn’t bother to add her words, and she took the brown box and entered another space prepared in her own space.
“Ohhh… Isn’t this the space that was said to have been completed but never used?”
“You manage to remember.”
“Of course I remember! I’ve inherited some of my master’s abilities, so there won’t be many mimics smarter than me!”
In the first place, the mimics themselves were few in the dimension they belonged to, so it wasn’t very effective as an argument to show their intelligence.
Ugh-
Tania and a brown box entered a space that made you feel as if you were inside the most splendid universe.
It was a special space created by Tania to observe the special moments in more detail when contemplating the world. To put it in modern terms, it was a place where a few additional features were put into a very good telescope.
“Among the challengers who entered our space, were there any memorable ones?”
Tania asked the brown box with his characteristic blunt face, and Tiny scratched the head of the box with his long tongue that had come out of the box and began to recite countless names.
“······ There were guys like that.”
The brown box, which quickly named about 300 people, added two more special beings it had recently encountered.
“I also remember the luckiest guy. The Skeleton Soldier who won Werewolf with a 0.01% Chance. If another monster got caught, he wouldn’t have survived. A balancing condition was given. Even if it is.”
“Hmm… Maybe so.”
The brown box finished answering her owner’s long-awaited question, but she was distracted and did not notice Tania’s smiling face.