Chapter 25
"Hamin, are you really going to fight too?"
"Yeah!"
I rubbed my brow as I watched Baek Hamin roll up his sleeves.
I brought him in because I needed to, but he's seven years old right now... Is it really okay to make a kid do this? Isn't this the age where he should be at home laughing and chatting while watching cartoons with penguin friends? Is this truly fine for a child's psyche?
I had a lot to say, but since both his guardian and he himself said it was fine, I couldn't object. It wasn't like he was insisting unconditionally, and he even said he'd back out if he got scared.
'Still, is it really okay?'
Still feeling uneasy, I called Asil and gave a small signal with my eyes. Catching on, Asil nodded and clung to Baek Hamin's ankle, keeping watch on the surroundings.
Baek Hamin quietly put on the armor Baek Eunseong was helping him wear, and when our eyes met, he smiled brightly at me. I suppressed my rising tension and pulled up my hood.
"Surely. Is that it?"
"What do you mean?"
Are you picking on me because I don't have a weapon? As I looked at him with suspicious eyes, Baek Eunseong looked me up and down, then tore the cape off his own uniform and threw it to me.
"When exactly are you going to be objective about yourself?"
"What are you talking about? If you have a complaint, say it properly."
"I tell you every time. You don't have a defensive skill, so you need armor."
"Hmm?"
What is he talking about? I've never heard such a thing.
Looking at Baek Eunseong with a slightly peeved expression, I glanced back and forth between his outfit and mine.
I did need to buy armor. Both I and 'Seong Dohyun' were the type to believe that offense is the best defense, so I only thought about buying weapons and didn't even glance at armor, but it seemed like getting one wouldn't hurt.
...Anyway, I guess he was worrying about me in his own way.
I coughed unnecessarily and draped the torn cape around myself like a blanket. Maybe because it was expensive, even though it was long enough to wrap around my body entirely, I couldn't feel any weight at all.
"Well, thanks."
At my thanks, Baek Eunseong looked at me with an expression of disbelief.
With that greeting over and the two of us falling silent, Baek Hamin's voice suddenly popped up.
"Uncle! Hamin, Hamin is going to ask a quiz. Try to guess!"
I pushed the large body standing in front of me aside, placed my hands on my hips, and looked down at the chirping Baek Hamin. After escaping that guy's party, now he's trying to ask a quiz.
Unlike me, who was wiping my face in exhaustion, Baek Eunseong was listening to Baek Hamin's quiz with a serious face.
"What's that?"
What Baek Hamin pointed at was the dungeon's core.
When I answered that I didn't know, Baek Hamin smiled brightly and chattered away in explanation. He gave a long-winded explanation about how a hunter just has to pass through the gate, defeat all the magic beasts that appear in the dungeon, and the exit will open, but he was leaving out the most important part.
I observed Baek Eunseong's expression and nodded as if I was hearing it all for the first time. I already knew all the rules from reading the original work, but since 'Seong Dohyun' would be visiting this place for the first time, I figured it was better to pretend I didn't know.
Regardless of its size or range, the number of waves in a dungeon is determined by the number of people passing through the gate. If one person enters, there's one wave; if ten people enter, there are ten waves, and so on.
When Do Yudam first entered the dungeon in the original work, Baek Hamin explained that rule, but no one paid attention to his words. Afterwards, Do Yudam belatedly realized the dungeon's rule and organized small-scale raid parties, but by then, many people had already been lost.
Recalling the novel's content, a sigh escaped me involuntarily. As I took my seat with a bitter expression, I raised an eyebrow at Baek Eunseong, who was staring intently at me.
"Why?"
"I just thought you moved quite familiarly."
"You pick fights in all sorts of ways."
"It's not a fight, ...It's just that you've never been to a dungeon before."
He must be wondering how I could be moving around so calmly despite that.
"I went to the Academy too, you know?"
He's too sharp for his own good.
I turned my back to Baek Eunseong and focused on the rippling mana.
* * *
The first magic beasts to appear were goblins.
The goblins didn't attack immediately; instead, they conversed amongst themselves with "Kik, Kik" sounds and began forming formations. The goblins surrounding us were holding laughable weapons like chipped swords and axes with broken handles, but seeing their numbers completely filling the cave, I couldn't even let out a hollow laugh.
Isn't this too much? There were only three of us on this side, but the other side looked to easily exceed 300.
While I was checking on Baek Hamin, whose shoulders were raised in tension, Baek Eunseong swung his hand and created an earthen wall. It was structured so that goblins would come out one by one through a gourd-shaped entrance.
As a goblin popped out of the earthen wall's entrance, Baek Hamin lashed it with a vine. Is it because he's a trained hunter despite his age? There was no hesitation in his movements. I watched Baek Hamin take them down one by one, then quietly stepped back.
I intended to help, but watching Baek Hamin handle it, it seemed there was no need for me to step in. I figured I'd step in only if he asked for help because he couldn't handle it. Just as I thought that, a loud rumbling and crashing sound echoed. The goblins had combined their strength and were breaking the earthen wall.
Baek Hamin, who had created thorn bushes to block the rushing goblins, looked back at me with a tearful face.
"Uncle!"
At his desperate shout, I jumped up from my spot and immediately used a skill.
[Plop Plop]
Clap! The sound of hands clapping rang out through the entire cave, riding the air.
A very brief moment passed, where my hair rustled in the wind generated by the aftermath, and then the goblins' pupils began to tremble slowly. I watched the increasingly shaking pupils, then covered Baek Hamin's eyes.
I also averted my eyes from the goblin heads bursting with bizarre sounds and looked down at my palm.
'Is it because it's a dungeon...?'
It felt like the destructive power was greater than usual. Even though I used less force because Baek Hamin was here, it still had this much power. I flicked my fingertips a few times to adjust my strength and got a rough feel for it.
"Uncle..."
Pop, pop. I, who had been popping goblin heads without hesitation, clicked my tongue softly at Baek Hamin's groggy voice.
'As I thought, it's a bit cruel for a kid to see...'
"Amazing."
Scene...
...Huh?
Baek Hamin stopped growing clover and clung tightly to my leg. Perhaps because he was a hunter who had received mental fortitude training since childhood, unlike me, even with the chaos around him, Baek Hamin's eyes sparkled as he rattled off all sorts of praises—cool, amazing, and so on.
...Well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. To me it was a grotesque scene, but to Baek Hamin, it could look cool. I thought that anything would look amazing in a kid's eyes, but
"Uncle! You're so cool!"
Hearing him praise me so openly made me feel a bit embarrassed.
With a gesture from me, the goblins collapsed with blood spurting from their noses. I looked with a puzzled face at Baek Eunseong, who was staying quiet far away.
Why is he so withdrawn? Normally, he would be the guy to kill the magic beasts I was going to take care of first and provoke me, but today he had stepped back, only protecting Baek Hamin and doing nothing else.
I wondered if he was moving when I wasn't looking, but even when I sharpened my senses, I couldn't particularly feel Baek Eunseong's aura.
Don't tell me that bastard is getting carried?
Whether he truly decided to just freeload, Baek Eunseong didn't move a muscle until Baek Hamin and I finished off all the goblins, only tending to Baek Hamin's needs and doing absolutely nothing else.
After drinking water and wiping off the bodily fluids splattered here and there, Baek Hamin tried to collect the dungeon byproducts just as he had learned at the Academy, but I stopped him. Even so, I didn't want to see a young kid rummaging through a place like this. I also didn't want to show him any more terrible sights.
Baek Eunseong seemed to feel the same way, as he had summoned a golem at some point and was pushing the goblin corpses to one side.
Not long after that, the second wave began.
Following the goblins, the cave slimes that revealed themselves were also trapped by the earthen wall Baek Eunseong had created. However, unlike the goblins, the slimes somehow squeezed their bodies through the gaps in the wall and crawled out inch by inch.
Baek Hamin dealt with those slimes by driving tree roots into them and absorbing their moisture. I also tried using various skills, but for some reason, they were useless.
"Uncle, are you okay?"
Baek Hamin, after binding the slime tightly in a circle with thick vines, held out a handkerchief to me. I confirmed that the slime bodily fluid splattered on my cheek was moving alive, then crushed it with my fingertips.
Even though I had definitely applied force, the slime still writhed.
'That's one tenacious life.'
I used another skill against the slime wriggling and crawling up.
[Plop Plop]
Then, the bubbling, boiling slime went Pop! and burst, splattering onto the walls and ceiling. It would have been nice if it had disappeared forever like that.
"Haa..."
The slime bodily fluids scattered in all directions wriggled, then merged and split, becoming new individuals that began attacking me.
I counterattacked with more force, but the slime didn't die. It just split apart.
Setting aside my anger and annoyance, there was nothing I could do. The more I used my abilities, the more I was just increasing the number of slimes, so staying still was more helpful. Perhaps because they lacked auditory receptors, 'Celestial Command' didn't work either.
I stepped back and motioned with my chin toward Baek Eunseong. Baek Eunseong quietly looked around, then created a sand golem. Baek Eunseong also dealt with the magic beasts by drawing out the slimes' moisture like Baek Hamin, but the number of them being annihilated was noticeably small.
It seemed he was only using his power to the extent of gathering the slimes so Baek Hamin could deal with them.
I crossed my arms and glared at the back of Baek Eunseong's head. No, previously he was so anxious to get in front of me to kill more magic beasts himself, so why is he acting like that? Is he yielding because it's his nephew, or what?
As I chewed my lip and turned my head, an unknown plant grown by Baek Hamin had its roots buried in the slime, wriggling as it absorbed the moisture.
For me, as 'Seong Dohyun', it was an ability I could never replicate even if I died and came back to life.
Is this why the Association President emphasized teams so much? No matter how strong scissors are, they can't beat rock on their own.