‘Fuck, this is suffocating.’
So fine, meeting Kwon Taehan for the first time was one thing, but now that “Seo Jehyun” had appeared, I still had no freedom over my own actions? The sensation of being completely detached from my body was neither new nor particularly strange, yet it still managed to make everything feel fucking awful.
Still, awful was awful, and I also understood that the current situation was an opportunity.
Kwon Taehan was someone who had experienced everything from beginning to end. If I followed his perspective, then naturally I would end up understanding the principles behind “Seo Jehyun’s” behavior as well.
Well, the novel I originally read had been from Kwon Taehan’s perspective in the first place. Though at this point, calling it a novel felt questionable.
Kwon Taehan stared blankly at “me,” then wiped his face and abruptly stood up.
“...Sorry. I’m mentally exhausted right now.”
“Well, understandable? The higher-ranked Hunters are, the more lunatics there tend to be.”
“.......”
I answered casually while meeting Kwon Taehan’s gaze. Normally, with his personality, he would have avoided eye contact out of embarrassment after showing such a pathetic side of himself, but maybe he really had snapped a little, because he simply held my gaze quietly. Though his hands and feet kept twitching faintly.
I watched his aimless hands for a moment before asking in a friendly voice,
“Do you not have a home?”
“...Do you live nearby?”
“No.”
“......?”
For a moment, Kwon Taehan whipped his head toward me with eyes full of suspicion, like he thought he had misheard. Meanwhile, I casually sat down right in front of him.
“You’re kind of unusual, you know? I heard what you were saying earlier.”
“Ah, I.... ...You know me.”
“How could I not? How many S-rank Hunters are there in this country?”
Brushing aside his words, I continued with what I actually wanted to say.
“Once you pass a certain rank, your abilities end up far surpassing normal human levels, right? So naturally, your humanity starts disappearing. Most people either become psychopaths... or they struggle in their own ways to preserve their humanity.”
“.......”
“Or maybe the ones who were already a little psychopathic to begin with just end up becoming high-rank Hunters. Honestly, the cause-and-effect there’s a little vague.”
“Psychopath is a bit...”
Kwon Taehan denied my words and looked away. His eyes wandered around restlessly, like he could not process this situation at all. It also seemed like the embarrassment was finally catching up to him.
Without taking my eyes off him, I continued dryly.
“So... the other S-ranks all live with some kind of personal objective to help them blend back into humanity using these amazing powers of theirs, right? Like wanting to see the end of the world... or helping humans so they can fully integrate with them. Or maybe just chasing dopamine.”
“.......”
“It’s ridiculous, honestly. Having abilities specialized for killing, yet constantly trying to protect something. Wouldn’t it be easier to just change the objective a little? Instead of ‘I’ll clear Gates to protect civilians,’ make it ‘I’ll kill every living thing inside the Gate.’ Either way, the result’s pretty similar, right? What you need is a reframing of the goal.”
For a moment, confusion clouded Kwon Taehan’s eyes. Then, after a long silence, he asked,
“...Who are you?”
“Why ask? You already know.”
“What?”
Kwon Taehan’s body flinched.
I stared directly at him, then shifted my gaze ever so slightly upward.
And there it was.
Seo Jehyun’s Status Window.
Name: Seo Jehyun
Age: 25
Rank: B
Title: ■■ of ■■■
Main Skills: Mimic(S), Agitation(A), Azure Current Bomb(A), Pouring Rain(A)
Growth Limit: S
It was... significantly different from what I knew.
Kwon Taehan’s eyes passed over me and lingered briefly on the Status Window before returning to me full of suspicion.
“You... can see something?”
“See what?”
“You just looked at something and then at me—!”
“Ha....”
At some point, Kwon Taehan had naturally dropped formal speech and was now interrogating me in a lowered voice tinged with alarm. I let out a short sigh and ran a hand through my hair.
Kwon Taehan’s gaze shifted toward my hand, then returned to my face.
“Your mental state’s pretty severe. Want me to recommend a hospital?”
“.......”
Maybe he noticed the faint irritation mixed into my tone, because Kwon Taehan immediately shut his mouth. After confirming how obediently quiet he became, I curled the corner of my mouth upward.
Still, Kwon Taehan’s wavering gaze drifted back to my Status Window again. It was obvious what he was looking at.
My Title.
‘■■ of ■■■.’
And ironically enough, right now, I knew exactly what that Title was.
Because it had originally belonged to me too.
‘Seed of the Great Cataclysm, probably.’
Kwon Taehan avoided my gaze before asking in a more subdued voice than before. He still sounded cautious.
“But why... are you talking to me like that? I don’t know you....”
“Really?”
I answered brightly and stood up without hesitation. I knew Kwon Taehan’s gaze followed me, but I paid it no mind.
“...Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“.......”
I walked steadily toward the end of the alley, then bent down to pick something up.
Kwon Taehan lowered his eyes toward it before suddenly realizing what it was and hurriedly rising to his feet.
“Sleep well, Taehan?”
“The noise suppression...!”
Without a care, I picked up the item blocking outside noise and slipped it into my pocket. From the beginning, Kwon Taehan’s shouting had never leaked outside in the first place.
Realizing that too, Kwon Taehan stared at my back with even greater confusion than before.
That night, after returning home, Kwon Taehan spent a long time deep in thought with a grave expression.
His occasional muttering carried no certainty.
“What the hell.... Who was that?”
He was trying to remember whether he had ever seen me before.
And by this point, even I had become suspicious.
‘Had I met Kwon Taehan before this?’
Otherwise, there was no reason for “me” to act that familiar.
***
Kwon Taehan and “I” met again not long afterward.
Their reunion happened inside a Dungeon.
A-rank Gate (Swamp of Death)
A swamp filled with poisonous fog.
Beneath it stretches an abyssal sea.
Dungeon Boss - Kelpie
Other Dungeon life-form information...... View More
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Entering the Dungeon alongside a Hunter capable of manipulating air, Kwon Taehan accepted a temporary supply of breathable air and looked around.
From experience, he already knew touching the swamp meant death, so he used wind to sweep the swamp aside before diving directly into the sea beneath it.
He was able to breathe, but the crushing pressure of the water still seemed to weigh heavily on his body. Kwon Taehan repeatedly struggled to straighten himself out.
FWISH—!
At that moment, a chilling sound erupted right beside him along with a violent wave. Reflexively covering his ears, Kwon Taehan groaned briefly in pain.
Because the dark sea made it impossible to distinguish anything even an inch ahead, Kwon Taehan fumbled around before pulling out an item from his pocket that emitted light.
Click.
The instant he activated it, a flash illuminated the surrounding area all at once, allowing him to see far into the distance.
Something with gleaming eyes was staring at him from the dark ocean depths.
“......!”
The creature staring directly at Kwon Taehan had the head of a horse, while its tail stretched long like a fish’s. It was at least two or three times larger than an average human, overwhelming enough just to look at.
Kelpie(A)
Possesses the head of a horse and the tail of a fish.
Has a cruel temperament.
The Kelpie charged without hesitation.
Something like this probably would not kill him, but it was true that the matchup was terrible. Bringing a fire-user into a place like this just because he was a high-rank Hunter.
Still, Kwon Taehan’s raw physical specs were monstrous enough that he could still generate flames even in the freezing sea.
The moment the Kelpie saw fire blazing underwater, it stopped charging toward Kwon Taehan.
Instead, it immediately turned and sought another target.
“No...!”
The A-rank Hunter controlling air quickly realized the Kelpie had switched its target to him and began struggling frantically.
Kwon Taehan also fired flames toward him, but even though the flames were stronger than usual, they quickly extinguished in the freezing water.
Realizing the limitations of his range, Kwon Taehan urgently tried moving toward the Hunter, but the Dungeon itself was never going to make things easy.
‘This is bad.’
At that moment, the water surged violently once before a flesh-piercing sound rang out, and the A-rank Hunter’s body was violently flung backward.
The Hunter’s survival was decided instantly.
The air bubble allowing him to breathe disappeared in an instant.
The realization that the Hunter who had entered alongside him was dead quickly vanished beneath the water choking off his breath. After all, the most primal instinct of all was survival.
So even an S-rank Hunter ended up like this if the affinity matchup was bad.
Desperately trying to keep his rapidly sinking body afloat, Kwon Taehan struggled wildly. Though the more he struggled, the more quickly his oxygen ran out.
And then, after disposing of one human, the Kelpie twisted its body and looked back toward Kwon Taehan.
After becoming an S-rank, how often had Kwon Taehan stood directly before the fear of death?
Kicking through the water as though it were solid ground, the Kelpie charged toward him.
His breathing grew ragged, his body stiffened. His entire body felt unbearably heavy, like someone was dragging him toward the bottom, yet the creature before him was overwhelmingly more threatening than that.
What did it feel like to wait for death while knowing your opponent was clearly weaker than you?
I wanted to dissect Kwon Taehan’s state of mind.
As the violent shockwave created by the Kelpie rapidly approached to tear Kwon Taehan’s body apart, suddenly a vibration spread through the entire sea.
Wooooong—
A circular wave formed at the center and shattered the Kelpie’s razor-sharp water pressure.
As the charging Kelpie turned its gaze elsewhere in search of the source interfering with it—
KRAK, KRRK.
With a brutal sound like bones snapping apart, the Kelpie’s entire body twisted violently.
Dark blood slowly spread through the surrounding water.
Soon after, the Kelpie’s rigid corpse slowly began sinking.
Before Kwon Taehan could even understand what had happened, his consciousness gradually faded.
Honestly, he had already lasted impressively long.
At this level of water pressure, the fact that he had struggled this much without dying already proved how absurdly durable he was.
***
The first thing Kwon Taehan saw upon opening his eyes again—
was “me.”
“I” shoved back my soaked hair roughly while wringing water from my clothes and said,
“Fuck, you really were sleeping good. Perfect way to get yourself killed.”