24
My cheek throbbed.
A metallic taste slowly spread across my tongue from inside my mouth. It seemed the flesh on the inside had burst.
"Ah."
Only then realizing she had been slapped, Kim Jisoo blinked and rubbed her cheek, the stinging distinctly different from before.
She saw the back of the man who had kept her safe and brought her along to the very end, even in a situation where the friends she had known for over 15 years, who had saved her at the entrance of the dungeon, abandoned her to save their own lives.
'Spells....'
Staring blankly at Baek Woojin's back, Kim Jisoo finally recalled the words he had said before slapping her. It was already too late to run.
Kim Jisoo picked up her dropped staff, gripped it tightly, and stood up.
"Have you come to your senses?"
"Thanks to you."
"That's a relief. I was debating whether I should slap you one more time."
"Please spare me. If I got hit one more time, I wouldn't have come to my senses—I would've fainted."
"If that had happened, I would have abandoned you and run."
"Are you serious?"
"Yes."
"Wow..."
At the completely humorless answer, Kim Jisoo glared at Baek Woojin's back for a moment before letting out a soft snort of laughter.
"Make sure you keep the promise you made earlier."
"Of course."
"Good. What should I do?"
As Kim Jisoo asked, gripping her staff tightly with both hands, Baek Woojin answered while keeping his eyes on the horde of goblins beginning to emerge one by one from the bushes.
"Just keep jamming icicles into those bastards' faces until your mana runs dry."
"Phew, I needed something to take my anger out on anyway, so that works out. More importantly, are you confident you can block them all?"
"Probably."
"Let them break through, and I'll jam an icicle into the back of your head too."
"Just start chanting. They're coming slowly."
At Baek Woojin's words, Kim Jisoo closed her mouth and drew upon her mana.
There are several factors that determine the power of magic.
Among them, the most significant portion is naturally the total amount of mana one can wield. That goes without saying. And the user's will also influences the power.
'They abandoned me and ran away, didn't they...?'
Inside Kim Jisoo, the sense of betrayal toward the two men who had abandoned her and fled transformed into rage, and that rage soon became a fierce flame of determination to survive this place and exact revenge.
"Die!!"
With a cry filled with intense resentment, chunks of ice nearly twice the size of the icicles she had shown so far materialized above her head and rained down on the horde of goblins creeping out to charge at Baek Woojin.
"A new spell?"
"It's just Icicle! Just focus on blocking the entrance!!"
"I don't need you to tell me."
Baek Woojin drew the hand axe he had been fondling and threw it; the skull of a goblin charging from the front shattered, tangling with the ones following behind it.
Even though the edge was dulled, thanks to its much larger and heavier mass, a single spell crushed about ten goblins into pulp.
Considering her remaining mana, she could cast it about seven more times.
In simple terms, 70 goblins.
'Don't think about the rear, just smash them all!!'
Kim Jisoo closed her eyes and focused on visualizing and chanting the spell. There was no need to specify a direction. Because outside the wooden fence, goblins were packed everywhere she looked.
"Just die!!"
"All of you die!!"
"You bastards!!"
"Aaaargh!!"
Packing all her resentment into each spell, Kim Jisoo screamed until her voice gave out by the final cast, her voice cracking completely.
"Hah, haah!!"
Squeezing out the very last drop of her mana, Kim Jisoo lacked even the strength to hold her staff and slumped to the ground. Then, desperately clinging to her fading consciousness, she raised her head and opened the eyes she had kept shut for so long.
"Ha, haha..."
Confirming with her own two eyes that Baek Woojin was still standing guard at the entrance of the wooden fence, Kim Jisoo let out a hollow laugh without realizing it.
Around Baek Woojin, who was keeping his original position, was a heaping pile of green imp corpses.
However, every single dead goblin had a body part severed, spilling their innards as they lay scattered about.
'That guy is E-rank?'
Come to think of it, him saving her at the entrance of the dungeon was definitely strange too. Not only did he notice an ambush that even those D-rank bastards hadn't caught, but he also saved her in time.
Slash.
Lightly deflecting the sword of a charging goblin and swinging diagonally, the goblin's body was sliced cleanly along the trajectory of his sword.
'This is...'
Kim Jisoo looked at Baek Woojin's back, which seemed inexplicably broad, before finally losing consciousness.
**
Kieeeek!!
One.
Kyaak!!
Another one.
Kaang!!
He swiftly knocked away the hand axe thrown by a goblin by drawing another hand axe from his waist.
'Bringing her along was definitely the right choice.'
Sweat ran down his forehead and his breathing had grown somewhat rough, but it was manageable. It was all thanks to the massive chunks of ice that Kim Jisoo, who had fainted behind him, had slammed outside the wooden fence.
The entrance was already a single point, limiting the route the goblins could use to enter, but Kim Jisoo's chunks of ice further narrowed that path, significantly reducing the number of goblins that could charge in at once.
'That guy is... still sitting well—'
Slash!
'there.'
Confirming the presence of the damn monkey still sitting with its ass planted on the same tree as before, Baek Woojin grew annoyed by the endlessly charging goblins, especially since Kim Jisoo had fainted, and decided to bring a little change to this situation.
Uuuung!!
Baek Woojin's mana, which he hadn't released even once until now, spread throughout his entire body.
"Keuk?!"
"You're spitting on me, you little shit."
Grabbing the neck of the charging goblin, Baek Woojin hurled it with all his might at another charging bastard with his swollen muscles. Then, he leaped over the squelching pile of corpses and stepped outside the wooden fence.
Kyaa──
A hand axe embedded itself into the nape of the screaming goblin.
Thwack!
Before the goblin with the axe embedded in it could even fall to the ground, Baek Woojin closed the distance, retrieved his hand axe, and charged into the faltering horde of goblins using his sword and hand axe, both brimming with a grayish aura.
Kiheeeek?!
Kihihihiik!!
Baek Woojin, who until now had looked hard-pressed just holding his ground, unleashed his mana and began slaughtering the goblins like a wolf throwing itself into a flock of sheep.
Kiheeeek!!
Kihek! Kiheeeek!!
The moment the positions of predator and prey reversed, the horde of goblins that had been charging in without fear began to flee in all directions, pushing and trampling their own kind to survive.
"Hah, haah!!"
Only after every living goblin disappeared from his sight did Baek Woojin exhale the breath he had been holding and withdrew the mana coating his weapons.
It wasn't that he hadn't received help from the red thread, but even without it, monsters with pathetic physical abilities like goblins were at a level where they could be slaughtered the moment he learned how to wield mana from Shulodin.
His abnormally high mana value, which was on the verge of C-rank, made this possible.
And the mana he had used while killing nearly 100 goblins right now didn't even amount to a third of his total.
Thud.
A tiny pebble fell onto the head of Baek Woojin, who was bending over and panting for breath.
Raising his head, Baek Woojin looked at the tree where the damn monkey was sitting.
Ukiki~!
The Silence Monkey, making eye contact with Baek Woojin, stood up, hopped, and took out another small pebble from who knows where it had hidden it, throwing it at Baek Woojin.
Smack.
Even though he could have easily dodged it, Baek Woojin didn't avoid the flying pebble and blocked it with his hand. Unlike the one that fell on his head earlier, this one carried considerable force, making his arm throb.
Kiik!!
An unpleasant mouth shape that anyone could tell was mocking him.
Baek Woojin picked up one of the hand axes the goblins had used. Then, he threw it at the bastard hopping around on the tree.
Ukki! Ukkikik~!!
The thrown hand axe didn't even come close to reaching the tree, failing to cover even half the distance before falling uselessly to the ground. Watching this, the Silence Monkey clapped its split tail together as if applauding and started holding its belly in laughter.
Watching this, Baek Woojin picked up another hand axe.
Unlike the ones the goblins used, it was a black hand axe with a sharply honed edge.
Uki~? Ukiki!!
As Baek Woojin took a stance to throw the hand axe again, the monkey, which had been laughing heartily, tilted its head briefly before straightening its posture and pulling out a fist-sized cobblestone from its fur.
The monkey assumed the exact same throwing stance as Baek Woojin, ready to hurl the cobblestone.
At the provocation of the monkey, which was grinning widely with only a stance despite being able to throw it immediately, Baek Woojin's mana, which seemed completely depleted and had been hiding its presence entirely, erupted like an explosion.
Ukuhk?!
"Haaaaap──!!"
The Silence Monkey, realizing too late that it had been tricked, hurriedly turned its body, but the hand axe imbued with a gray aura had left Baek Woojin's hand a fraction faster.
Ukeok!!
The hand axe, tearing through the air, embedded itself precisely into the Silence Monkey's spine.
"I guess I'll need to buy another axe when I get back."
Baek Woojin walked over to find the Silence Monkey, which had fallen helplessly after being struck by the hand axe.
"U, ukik..."
"You had your fun mocking me, didn't you?"
Approaching the monkey, which was crawling on the ground with its long arms trying to escape with a hand axe still embedded in its back, Baek Woojin firmly stepped on the creature's neck and held his sword in a reverse grip.
"Let's see if you can still laugh even after your head is split open."
"Kiiik...?!"
The tip of the sword, aimed at the creature's crown, pierced precisely through its skull according to its master's will.
Rumble!!
Almost at the same time the Silence Monkey went limp, the dungeon began to shake precariously.
"As expected, it was a variant."
Very occasionally, mutant individuals that escape the dungeon's will are born.
While they are monsters born from the dungeon, they are also the ones targeting the dungeon's core.
'Should I call this lucky or not?'
Normally, when mutants take the core and evolve into variants, most of them evolve into individuals with physical abilities that make them impossible to defeat within the same rank.
Fortunately, however, the one crumbling away right now was a Silence Monkey, a species inherently specialized in causing chaos using intelligence rather than direct combat. Because of that, even though its physical abilities had increased, they thankfully remained at a manageable level.
"Really, every time I come down to Busan, I get caught up in an incid...?"
Scratching his head, wondering how he should explain this incident too, Baek Woojin blinked at a small pebble lying conspicuously on the spot where the monkey had completely crumbled away.
A pebble slightly smaller than the palm of his hand, engraved with something ambiguous—whether it was text or a picture.
"Crazy."
Reflecting on his past self from just a moment ago, who had been babbling about good and bad luck, Baek Woojin quickly reached out his hand toward the rune stone that had fallen to the ground.