A dark night.
Dim lighting enveloped the hospital room.
Even though there was only one bed inside, several people were moving about.
Even outside the room, bodyguards stood watch.
All to care for a single patient.
The patient was none other than the second son of the Phoenix Guild Master, Jeong Woojin.
That was why all the personnel were tending to him with such care, even at this late hour.
Because if anything went wrong, their heads would be the first to roll.
“Hee-hee… hah….”
But Jeong Woojin’s condition in the bed was not good.
No, it wouldn’t have been strange to call it the worst.
Even when left alone, he would grin, drool, and sometimes even have seizures.
When the seizures were truly severe, everyone around him would have to hold him down together.
Jeong Woojin.
He had originally wielded personnel authority within the guild.
It was a lower position compared to his older brother, the Vice Guild Master, but the title of Guild Master’s son was not something that could be taken lightly.
And what kind of guild was the Phoenix Guild?
It was one of the top guilds in South Korea.
It possessed enough power to blow away run-of-the-mill small and medium guilds with a single breath.
Thus, Jeong Woojin lived receiving royal treatment within the Phoenix Guild.
If this wasn’t happiness, what was?
But that happiness did not last long.
Jeong Woojin grew a bit greedier.
He wanted to raise his standing within the guild even a little more. At the same time, he wanted to bring down his half-sister, Jeong Yerin.
So he planned one thing.
A dungeon raid.
Assigning dungeons wasn’t difficult.
Since Jeong Woojin himself held personnel authority, he could choose which dungeon to assign as he pleased.
He assigned his sister an A-rank dungeon where a Goblin Lord would appear.
And he chose a B-rank Incubus dungeon for himself.
Incubus.
A monster that drained the vitality of women.
Therefore, if one prepared properly, it was practically a free dungeon.
Jeong Woojin had headed out to raid the Incubus dungeon shouting with confidence.
The result?
It ended in failure.
Though he had barely returned alive, his current state was unspeakable.
It was to the point where one might think it would have been better to just die.
Daily life was already impossible.
The life he desired within the guild was now over.
He was now a nonexistent person within the guild.
No, rather, he was a disgrace that had to be hidden.
What he had experienced inside the dungeon was thoroughly covered up and controlled.
“Ah.”
Tears flowed from Jeong Woojin’s eyes as his mind briefly returned.
It was an endless cycle of regret.
In the dungeon he had thought would be an unconditional success, one variable had existed.
The appearance of a Succubus.
And it was a high-rank monster at that.
And then he and his subordinates’ memories cut out.
After that.
“Urk…!”
Only terrible memories he didn’t even want to think about remained.
That place was hell.
A hell he didn’t want to think about.
Yes, it was a memory he must absolutely forget.
To the point where he wished he would just lose his mind completely.
Even now, Jeong Woojin tried desperately to erase his memories.
Just for a moment.
If this continued, his mind would break again.
As Jeong Woojin muttered to himself, a voice came from outside.
“You’ve arrived.”
It seemed someone had come to visit.
Who could it be?
Jeong Woojin was already mentally broken.
When he was hospitalized here, not a single family member had come to visit him.
The only visitors had been hunters from the intelligence department of the Phoenix Guild.
But now, someone had come to see him.
Could it be from the guild again?
The hospital room door opened, and soon a man revealed himself.
It was an unexpected person.
“…Hyung.”
It was Jeong Taeyeong, Vice Guild Master of the Phoenix Guild and Jeong Woojin’s older brother.
“Everyone, get out. Don’t come in until I say so.”
Jeong Taeyeong first cleared out the personnel inside the room.
After confirming that everyone had left, he finally looked at Jeong Woojin.
“I heard your condition wasn’t good, but you look fine, Jeong Woojin.”
The first visit to his injured younger brother.
But Jeong Taeyeong’s voice carried a chill.
“…….”
Jeong Woojin couldn’t say anything.
Because his brother’s reaction was too cold.
‘Well, it’s because I failed.’
The Phoenix Guild’s image must have taken a hit as well.
That would soon come back to hurt his brother, the Vice Guild Master.
Jeong Woojin thought so.
But the words that came from Jeong Taeyeong’s mouth were completely different.
“Did you want to become Vice Guild Master that badly?”
“…?”
What was he talking about?
Why would he want to be Vice Guild Master?
Jeong Woojin couldn’t understand his brother’s words right now.
He wanted to open his mouth and express his confusion, but Jeong Taeyeong didn’t give him the time.
“To the point where I’d want to applaud if everything you’ve shown until now was an act. Truly amazing.”
Jeong Taeyeong actually clapped as he mocked him.
“Nothing you said was true.”
Jeong Woojin still looked confused at his brother’s words.
What was going on?
Had something else happened while he was unconscious?
“Seeing that ‘I don’t know’ expression even now, I can’t help but be impressed.”
Jeong Taeyeong slowly approached.
“I sent a raid party to that dungeon based solely on your word. But the raid party has been completely out of contact. With that level of force, they should have already cleared the dungeon with time to spare.”
Jeong Taeyeong had already come right up to Jeong Woojin.
“Within the guild, they’re already reaching a conclusion. That some variable occurred. And word has it that the raid party has effectively been annihilated.”
Jeong Taeyeong slowly raised his hand.
“So I thought. Where did things go wrong? No, was it really a mistake?”
His hand brushed the flower beside the bed.
“What if, really what if, it wasn’t a mistake? What if things were made to go wrong from the very beginning?”
Petals were plucked one by one by Jeong Taeyeong’s hand.
“There was no Succubus in the dungeon from the start. No, it might not have been an Incubus dungeon from the beginning. You were played by a planned scheme.”
All the petals fell.
“I thought about who would benefit the most if this went wrong.”
As all the petals fell, his now aimless hand pointed at Jeong Woojin.
“Jeong Woojin. Did you want to be Vice Guild Master that badly? Enough to surpass me, your older brother?”
Jeong Taeyeong’s voice trembled, submerged in anger.
Jeong Yerin had gone to a place she couldn’t return from anyway.
An A-rank Goblin Lord dungeon.
Even if she were still alive, she would die before long.
So he had erased Jeong Yerin from his thoughts entirely.
But Jeong Woojin was different.
Jeong Woojin was in a position where, despite being his younger brother, he could become a competitor at any time.
“The reason I’ve tolerated you until now isn’t simply because you’re my brother. I tolerated you because you knew your place and humbled yourself.”
But now, that was no longer the case.
Now that he knew Jeong Woojin was coveting his position, he couldn’t leave him be.
Jeong Taeyeong’s hand grabbed Jeong Woojin’s mouth.
“Mmph….”
Jeong Woojin struggled to escape his brother’s grip, but the difference in their strength was too great.
Jeong Taeyeong put more strength into his hand.
He looked ready to kill the brother before him at any moment.
“Since you’re useless anyway, wouldn’t it be better to just die?”
Strength drained from Jeong Woojin’s body.
Then.
“Vice Guild Master!”
Someone entered the hospital room.
It was Jeong Taeyeong’s secretary.
“What? Don’t you remember I said not to come in?”
“I’m sorry! It’s an extremely urgent matter right now….”
Jeong Taeyeong eased the strength in his hand.
What urgent business could there be at this hour?
“What is it?”
He turned his back on his coughing younger brother.
“A M-Monster Wave has erupted!”
“…What?”
Silence fell upon the room for a moment.
Why a Monster Wave all of a sudden?
“A Monster Wave erupted from the dungeon the raid party led by Seo Yeongho entered!”
“The scale!”
Jeong Taeyeong frowned as he looked at his younger brother.
Truly, nothing was going right.
“The monsters confirmed so far are Ghouls and Incubi and….”
The secretary paused for a moment.
Taking a deep breath, they opened their mouth again.
“A Death Knight has been confirmed as well.”
Haha.
An A-rank monster….
Jeong Taeyeong laughed in disbelief.
He was like a madman.
“Woojin.”
He called his brother’s name again.
“Are you still saying there was a Succubus there?”
With a voice filled with rage.
The doubts Jeong Taeyeong had harbored now made sense.
In the dungeon, there hadn’t been a Succubus but a Death Knight.
It made sense now why the raid party had gone silent, having focused only on the Succubus.
They must have already been annihilated by the Death Knight.
The Ghouls emerging from the dungeon now were probably the transformed raid party members.
“And also….”
But the report didn’t end there.
“Miss Jeong Yerin has come out of the dungeon.”
“What?”
What was going on here?
Why all of a sudden?
Ah, had she barely escaped with her life?
If so, it wasn’t impossible.
But the next words shattered Jeong Taeyeong’s expectations.
“…She cleared the dungeon. And she brought back the corpse of the Goblin Lord as well.”
Jeong Taeyeong staggered and sat on the edge of the bed.
“Ha….”
This was the worst.
Jeong Yerin’s appearance was an enormous variable in the current situation.
He had thought eliminating Jeong Woojin would be the end, but an even worse opponent had appeared.
Where had things gone wrong?
He glanced at Jeong Woojin.
“Woojin.”
Unlike before, his voice wasn’t cold.
“We’re brothers, aren’t we? Right?”
Rather, it was gentle.
“Mother is very worried as well. It’s because we’re the Phoenix Guild that I came this far, but if things get bigger, it’ll get difficult.”
That was true.
When Jeong Woojin’s incident blew up, Jeong Taeyeong had acted quickly.
First, he had used even artifacts to prevent the dungeon information from spreading, suppressing the aura as much as possible.
Covering up Jeong Woojin’s incident quietly was possible because of the Phoenix Guild’s prestige.
But the atmosphere had changed now.
A Monster Wave had erupted from a dungeon owned by the Phoenix Guild.
They had to stop it immediately.
They couldn’t let the Monster Wave grow bigger.
And there was a Death Knight that turned its victims into Ghouls.
If the scale continued to grow….
After the Monster Wave, the government would thoroughly investigate the Phoenix Guild.
In the worst case, hearings would be held.
“Tsk.”
The Monster Wave had turned everything upside down.
Moreover, the Monster Wave had erupted in a place with a considerable population.
If more damage occurred there?
If the situation reached a point where he could no longer handle it?
His father, the Guild Master, might be fine, but he, the Vice Guild Master, would certainly not come out unscathed.
In the worst situation, he might have to step down from his position as Vice Guild Master.
No, perhaps that was only the beginning.
Jeong Taeyeong swallowed his anger internally as he looked at Jeong Woojin.
Still, he was his younger brother.
Unlike Jeong Yerin, who had a different mother, Jeong Woojin was his biological brother born from the same womb.
“Woojin, finish this matter yourself.”
It was a request from an older brother.
“Whether you kill Jeong Yerin or stop the Monster Wave, take full responsibility and step down. Then I’ll at least let you live under the Phoenix Guild.”
At the same time, it was a threat.
If he couldn’t do it, what else could he do?
He would have to die.
* * *
The Hunter Association was quiet today as well.
Not because there were no personnel, but because there was no special emergency.
Unlike before, the system was now somewhat systematically established.
Most situations could be handled by lower-level agencies and hunters below.
“It’s another quiet day.”
Han Jeongcheol, who was on duty, was sitting in his chair resting.
He was an A-rank hunter and also the captain of the Emergency Response Team at the association.
They were called the Emergency Response Team, but in these peaceful times, they practically had nothing to do.
Even if a dungeon suddenly popped up somewhere, nearby guilds or government-affiliated hunters would handle it quickly.
Within the already systematically established system, they merely had to keep their posts.
Well, unless a Monster Wave erupted somewhere, that is.
“Captain! It’s serious! A Monster Wave has erupted!”
Just like this.
Right, a Monster Wave had erupted. Monst—
“What?!”
Han Jeongcheol rose from his seat with a surprised expression.
Then he looked at the person who had just spoken and replied.
“Mira, a Monster Wave? Are you kidding me right now?”
A Monster Wave all of a sudden?
Normally, he would have dismissed it as a joke.
But the person before him now was a dull fellow who knew nothing of jokes.
Lee Mirae.
A B-rank hunter belonging to the Emergency Response Team.
Han Jeongcheol knew her well since she was someone he personally kept under his wing.
She was definitely not the type to tell lies.
“Yes, Mira. What are you saying? A Monster Wave all of a sudden?”
This was no joke at all.
Because the words coming from Lee Mirae’s mouth were all serious matters.
“…Ghouls aren’t enough, now even a Death Knight? This is insane. Where’s the location?!”
The location was the most important thing.
If it happened in a remote place without people, it would be somewhat fortunate.
Because they could at least buy some time.
But the world was not a beautiful place that always turned out as one wished.
“It’s Anyang.”
Even the last hope was crushed.
Anyang was an area with quite a population.
And it was close to Seoul as well.
“Damn it! We’re deploying immediately!”
A Death Knight is an A-rank monster.
It wasn’t scary simply because it had a high rank; the Death Knight’s true power lay in its skill.
Those it killed were reborn as Ghouls.
In short, it could create Ghouls infinitely.
They had to subjugate it quickly before all the people turned into Ghouls.
“Please….”
He hoped that nothing serious would happen.
Praying that the damage would at least not be large, Han Jeongcheol assembled the Emergency Response Team.