Chapter 31

For now, the enemies from the outer universe knew nothing of Suho's existence. But if they eventually learned that the Shadow Monarch had a son, Suho would become the one weakness that could turn the tide of the war. Simply capturing him and holding him hostage would be enough to make Sung Jinwoo's forces falter.

... Which was why he had to get stronger, and fast.

"It all comes down to leveling up."

Suho nodded and looked around the Shadow Dungeon. His daily quest was finished, but hunting more goblins still seemed like a good idea. Looking back, hadn't the hidden quest also required him to hunt more than the allotted number?

'Maybe this was the direction the system wanted me to take all along.'

"Gray."

"... Whine?"

At Suho's call, Gray timidly raised his head.

"Esil."

"Yeah?"

Suho grinned at Gray and Esil as they looked at him.

"Now that you've eaten, isn't it time you earned your keep?"

"Whiiine."

Gray looked aggrieved. He hadn't gotten so much as a bite of the whole pigs. Still, hunting down his own food was better for his growth.

* * *

[You have defeated a Goblin Shaman.]

[You have defeated a Goblin Archer.]

...

[You have leveled up!]

For a while, Suho roamed the Shadow Dungeon with Esil and Gray, killing goblins. Gray sniffed the air inquisitively. Weak though he was, his sense of smell befitted a member of a clan of hunters, and he sniffed out goblins hiding in every corner.

SWISH! SWISH!

Esil, meanwhile, was a master of the spear. However weakened she might be, goblins weren't even a light snack for a demon noble. In fact, she occasionally plunged a hand into a goblin's body and sucked out its mana as though snacking.

"Blech. Tastes awful."

... Apparently she could taste things even when she ate with her hands. Did that mean she cleaned her fingernails instead of brushing her teeth?

'Demons really are fascinating.'

"...?"

Esil frowned and tilted her head. For some reason, Suho was looking at her as though she were some fascinating animal.

A little while later...

"There aren't any goblins left around here. I think we've pretty much killed them all."

"I don't see any over here either."

Only then did Suho stop walking and release his sword. Rakan’s Fang floated up under Ruler's Authority, and Beru flew over like a sparrow and landed firmly on its hilt.

[Young Monarch, I have also made a circuit of the area, and it truly seems we have killed them all.]

"Good work."

[What do you intend to do now?]

"We'll stay here and wait until they 'respawn' again."

Suho settled in a clearing with unobstructed views on all sides and established a foothold—a base camp, so to speak.

"We don't know when or where more will slip in, so let's keep scouting the area from here. By 'let's,' I mean you guys, not me."

"Us?"

Gray and Esil perked up at that.

"These guys will help too."

[Kerrk, kerrk!]

[Kerrrk!]

At Suho's words, the Shadow Goblins began prowling around on patrol. They looked like bandits looting a village, but they were on his side.

Suho's goal was to see new goblins appearing in the Shadow Dungeon with his own eyes. Given the existence of the daily quest, they were certain to slip in again before a day had passed.

"All right. You've helped me, so I should earn my keep."

Esil unconsciously licked her lips as she answered. Thanks to Suho, she'd enjoyed her first feast in ages, but the hunger of a long starvation wasn't going to disappear overnight.

'Goblins taste awful, but at least there are plenty of them.'

She swallowed, hoping they would appear soon, only to glance aside and find Gray wearing the exact same expression.

"Pant?"

"..."

Feeling as though she had been reduced to the same level as this little pup left Esil with decidedly mixed feelings.

* * *

[Would you like to exit the Shadow Dungeon?]

Leaving the Shadow Dungeon in Esil and Gray's care, Suho went outside.

'All those goblins, and I only leveled up once.'

As he'd thought, he needed to enter tougher dungeons to grow stronger.

He had plenty of options now. One was to threaten Rakan’s Fang into revealing the location of another sanctuary. But even Rakan’s Fang didn't know everything. It had promised to tell him if it sensed a new sanctuary, so he could wait on that for now.

The second was to find another Stardust factory somewhere and hunt its demons. At present, though, he had no leads.

'And the third is...'

Magok.

'I should check that place out first after all.'

Magok-dong, Gangseo District. The area was originally said to have been named Magok, meaning "Hemp Valley," because hemp grew there in abundance. But ever since the worst dungeon break in history had struck a year ago, people had begun calling it "Demon Valley" or "Demon Territory" instead. Magok had since been designated one of Korea's most dangerous field dungeons, and civilians had stopped coming altogether.

'Gwanaksan Field and Seoul Station Field both appeared a year ago. And Magok Field appeared exactly a year ago too.'

Quite the coincidence, wasn't it? Looking back on everything that had happened, he was certain Magok had to be connected somehow.

"Shall we get going, then?"

* * *

SCREECH.

The bus doors opened, and Suho stepped off. He had taken public transportation to the vicinity of Magok. Despite what had happened to the world, the trains and buses were still running just fine. That only made the world all the stranger. A few steps from a perfectly ordinary, civilized city could suddenly bring you into a hellscape teeming with magic beasts.

Even now, hunters were working hard to conquer and cleanse such areas, but at the same time, new Gates were opening somewhere else.

[But this place...]

As they approached Magok, Beru's gaze grew serious. Magok Field stretched ahead of them, a jungle of dense forest and blue mist.

[I can sense danger here at a glance. Though of course, it poses no danger whatsoever to me. Ahem.]

In the midst of his solemn boasting, Beru suddenly tilted his head and asked Suho a question.

[Young Monarch, why is there no barbed-wire fence here?]

Like Gwanaksan Field and Seoul Station Field, most field dungeons were enclosed by long stretches of barbed-wire fencing to keep magic beasts from getting out. Yet now that they had reached Magok, no such fences were anywhere in sight.

"It's too big to fence off, and fencing wouldn't serve any purpose here anyway."

[Why is that?]

"Most of the magic beasts here are plant-type monsters. They can't leave in the first place."

Strangely, plant-type monsters couldn't take root in soil without blue mist. That was a great stroke of luck for Earth's inhabitants. Otherwise, dungeon plants would have blanketed the planet long ago.

[Oh? What a fascinating place.]

Beru studied Magok's landscape with keen interest. Suho had mentioned plant-type magic beasts, but Beru could sense other presences as well.

[Young Monarch, is this field not occupied by another guild?]

"Not that I know of. I didn't find anything when I searched online either."

His research had shown that Magok Field was a hunting ground open to all hunters. Managing a place infested with plant-type magic beasts was simply too much trouble for a guild. Besides, selling magic beast corpses was a source of income, and plant-type beasts weren't worth much. Research was reportedly ongoing, so that might change someday, but for now, the area attracted little interest from hunters.

"Besides, there are ghosts here."

[Ghosts, you say?]

Beru looked even more intrigued.

Of course, these weren't ghosts out of horror movies. They were ghost-type monsters. Alongside the plant-type magic beasts, this forest was home to ghost-type monsters that left no corpses behind, no matter how much effort you put into killing them. Naturally, hunters disliked the place. There was no money in it.

'But I'm different. Experience points matter more to me than magic beast corpses.'

Yet the moment Suho set foot in Magok Field, a voice rang out.

-A sanctuary!

"...!"

Rakan’s Fang, which had been sitting quietly in his inventory until now, called to him urgently. Suho immediately took it out.

"What? A sanctuary? All of a sudden?"

-Yes. This whole area is filled with a sanctuary's energy! It seems this dense forest and blue mist were keeping that energy from escaping outside.

Beru looked at Suho.

[Then there must be a relic similar to Rakan’s Fang somewhere nearby.]

"Or a boss monster like Broki."

[Wouldn't either one be a gain?]

"Exactly. A relic means an item, and a boss monster means experience points and a shadow soldier."

Eyes gleaming, Suho surveyed the dense jungle. A jungle full of ghosts—an irritating, troublesome place for hunters in all sorts of ways. But Suho had a navigation system specifically for sanctuaries. He raised Rakan’s Fang in front of him.

"Can you tell where it is?"

-This way.

Rakan’s Fang shifted its tip to point toward the heart of the sanctuary. With the sword leading the way, Suho plunged boldly into the jungle.

* * *

Meanwhile, Suho wasn't the only one exploring Magok Field.

"Vice President, this is already our second day."

"How much longer are we going to stay here?"

"No, it's not that we're tired. It's just that we need to know the schedule and our exact objective so we can..."

The Baekho Guild's hunters had already spent two days wandering aimlessly through the jungle. The reason was Baek Miho, the guild's vice president, who was leading them. Yet none of them dared complain to her outright. Especially now, while guild president Baek Yoonho was away, his daughter and vice president, Baek Miho, was effectively the president herself.

"Someone keeps calling me."

For some time now, Baek Miho had been hearing a strange voice.

-Prove your worth.

It had begun without warning.

-Prove your worth.

At first, she'd dismissed it as a mere auditory hallucination. But as time passed, the voice had only grown louder, ultimately drawing her all the way to Magok.

'What on earth is here? What exactly am I supposed to prove myself worthy of?'

Baek Miho was every bit as frustrated. Still, there was definitely something here. After all, the voice had fallen silent the moment she entered the jungle.

Then it happened. The hunters shuddered at the sight of her face, their hair standing on end.

'The vice president's eyes...'

Her pupils had narrowed into long vertical slits. Suddenly, both her eyes were glowing yellow like a beast's.

'Eyes of the Beast.'

The Beast Transformation skill had made Baek Miho who she was today. Even this tiny glimpse of its power exerted tremendous pressure.

-Prove your worth.

"... It's started again."

The voice was once more echoing inside Baek Miho's mind. This time, however, its words were slightly different.

-Prove yourself worthy of becoming king.

Baek Miho slipped the hair tie off her wrist and tightly bound her hair, which billowed like a lion's mane. Then, with her beastly eyes, she glared fiercely in the direction of the voice.

"Everyone, prepare for combat."