I guess she learned a lesson after losing to him. As expected, Chae Nayun never neglects self-reflection.
“······.”
I gaped in admiration at the mystery unfolding before my eyes.
Chae Nayun’s magic power stirred up a fierce current as it gathered into her bow. The magic power sucked in everything around it and became a single arrow. Yet it was far too massive to be called an arrow; “pillar” would have been a more fitting description. It was an attack one couldn’t even attempt without extraordinary mental strength and control over magic power.
But before she could finish forming the arrow, the Magma Rock Monster broke free from its rigidity.
Guuuuoooooh—!
The team members tried to hold out as long as they could, but a single swing from the monster sent them flying. The creature let out a hideous roar and charged at Chae Nayun. I hurriedly raised my handgun.
However, before its fist could reach Chae Nayun, and before I could fire my gun, a flash of sword light appeared from somewhere and blocked it.
The owner of that sword was······ Sven.
Holding back the Magma Rock Monster with the blade of his sword, Sven looked back and said,
“Sorry. I was a bit late recovering.”
Chae Nayun released the bowstring without answering. Sven also pulled away at just the right timing. The enormous arrow erupted into a brilliant, vast beam of light and pierced straight through the Magma Rock Monster’s heart.
“Haa···. Haa···.”
The moment she fired it, Chae Nayun collapsed to the ground. The charge time alone had taken a full 15 seconds. She had poured an immense amount of magic power into it, and yet the Magma Rock Monster was still creaking as it moved. Chae Nayun bit her lip.
“I’ll finish it.”
But before the creature could recover, Sven cut off its head. The decapitated body of the Magma Rock Monster turned into hard igneous rock and crumbled away.
Boss cleared.
Sven sheathed his sword, came over to me, and bowed his head.
“Thank you for helping.”
“······.”
I looked at Sven.
At present, Sven had definitely made a contract with a djinn. However, he had not “run amok” as he did in the original. For now, that could be called fortunate. After all, we couldn’t deal with both the Magma Rock Monster and a djinn at the same time.
But he was destined to go berserk. Little by little, he would be eaten away by the devil, and before he even realized it, he would set foot on the path to ruin.
Because the devil Sven had contracted was far too powerful for him to handle······.
“You woke up fucking late, you bastard.”
Chae Nayun muttered that while lying sprawled on the ground. She seemed to have much more she wanted to say, but perhaps because she had no strength left, she simply closed her mouth.
────────────────────────────────────
────────────────────────────────────
Djinn and Garisan (1)
I lay on the ground and stared up at the ceiling. The sweltering heat seeped through my clothes. Even though we had defeated the dungeon’s master, this hot wind showed no sign of dying down.
Bored, I turned my head slightly to the side. A short distance away from me, Chae Nayun’s team was chatting among themselves. They had invited me to join them, but I refused. They would definitely ask me this and that, and it would get tiring.
“Hm.”
But Chae Nayun, who had been glancing my way for a while, was the first to move. She took one deep breath, then sprang to her feet. Then, step by step, she walked over to me.
“······”
Casting a shadow over where I sat, she silently looked down at me.
“What?”
I only raised my upper body. The sweat that had pooled on my body dripped to the ground. Chae Nayun’s brows furrowed slightly. However, she composed her expression and sat down beside me—though, of course, leaving about ten handspans between us.
“······Still, I feel like I should say this.”
Whether she was embarrassed or ashamed, Chae Nayun looked not at me but into empty space as she forced the words out.
“Th-Thanks.”
“······.”
For a moment, I was at a loss for words. I stared blankly at Chae Nayun’s profile. They were words I had never imagined I would hear from her.
Chae Nayun.
In the story, from age 17 to 27.
Her life, though she was no more than sixteen by Korean age, was far from ordinary. It was a life riddled with tragedy, practically a pathology in and of itself.
The first tragedy was probably her sixth birthday. On that day, when a six-year-old child should have been happier than anyone, her mother was murdered by a djinn.
After that incident, she grew into a personality completely different from what she had been before.
The child whose dream had simply been “to become a mother like her own mother” shed tears of blood and sought to become a hero. While other ordinary children laughed and played, she volunteered for training that involved striking and breaking others.
But the wound carved into her then remained as a scar deep in her heart. A “true friend” who could soothe it was a luxury for a fourth-generation chaebol. Opening one’s heart meant revealing one’s weaknesses and shame, and the moment the hyenas swarming outside learned of those weaknesses, they would rush in ferociously.
Because of that, the only person she trusted and relied on was her own blood, her comrade who shared the pain of loss—Chae Jinyun alone. Her father at the time, as the heir to a chaebol family, was far too busy to embrace Chae Nayun’s pain.
Yet cruelly enough, this world even took Chae Jinyun away from her.
I did not write what she felt afterward, so I do not know.
If I were to make a clumsy guess, Chae Nayun probably sharpened her convictions even further. Believing only in herself and regarding strength as the sole path in life, she must have desperately ignored the heart festering to its limits. Vowing to overcome everything alone, she must have given her heart to no one and repeated nothing but physical training and grueling cultivation······
Because of that, not many people had ever heard her say thank you. I knew that better than anyone. Even in situations where Chae Nayun’s lines could have used “thank you,” I had deliberately written “sorry” instead.
A woman like that had thanked me.
That was praise enough.
But at the same time, being reminded of my goal made my chest tighten.
I have to kill the blood relative Chae Nayun loves and respects most. Once again, I have to carve into her the sorrow of losing her own blood.
“But you······.”
Chae Nayun’s voice cut off my thoughts. She seemed to have more to say, her lips twitching, but no words actually came out.
“What?”
Frustrated, I urged her on.
Still staring into empty space, Chae Nayun added just one sentence.
“······Why do you just keep taking it?”
“Hm? What do you mean······ Ah.”
She was talking about Shin Jonghak’s group.
She was the one who had provoked them, but now that I was simply taking it, she seemed to feel a little sorry.
I answered simply.
“Because even if I fight, I can’t win. So I’m just staying still.”
Chae Nayun’s brows suddenly drew together, and at last she looked at me. Her face was definitely still childish. Unlike Yu Yeonha, whose face looked mature as well, her cheeks were quite plump. Was it because she’d gotten beaten up by the Magma Rock Monster? Either way, she looked like a steamed bun. I laughed inwardly.
“What are you talking about? I just saw how powerful your gun was.”
“Ah. That?”
I took the Desert Eagle out of my cross bag. To put it into subspace, the magic power of Stigma had to recover first, so I hadn’t been able to store it away.
“An unauthorized weapon. Does that explain it?”
Chae Nayun’s eyes widened in shock when she saw my high-grade weapon.
“Wow, you bastard. Hey. If you get caught with this, you’ll be suspended. You know that?”
“That’s why I only use it when it really matters.”
Chae Nayun closed her mouth. Then, as if suddenly lost in thought, she rubbed her chin pensively. I didn’t know what this woman was thinking. But for some reason, she seemed to be trying to come up with an answer on her own, so I waited quietly.
About three minutes. After brooding by herself with a sullen expression, Chae Nayun finally emptied out whatever had been in her head.
“There are still parts that don’t make sense with that explanation······ Ah, wait. Your talent is enhancing weapons—no, guns!”
I struggled to swallow the laughter that threatened to burst out. For reference, talent and awakening are different. Even before awakening, one can observe and develop one’s own talent sufficiently through experience and effort.
“Think whatever you want.”
I shot back like that and shrugged. It was a misunderstanding I had no need to correct.
Sure enough, Chae Nayun seemed to have concluded that her guess was the truth, and nodded with a strangely proud expression.
“Hmph. I knew it. Ah. And I’ll let the unauthorized weapon slide. But don’t use it next time.”
Chae Nayun stood up and brushed off her butt.
She was about to leave just like that, but suddenly stopped and looked back at me.
“······Ah. By the way.”
“What?”
With her back still turned to me, Chae Nayun asked in a much lower voice than before.
“You······ don’t have anything to say to me?”
“······.”
For an instant, my face stiffened.
This was probably Chae Nayun offering a gesture of reconciliation. A kind of signal that she would forgive me for bringing up her brother. If that was true, considering Chae Nayun’s personality, this was an enormous concession.
“······No, I don’t.”
However, I cut her off firmly and likewise stood up.
My relationship with Chae Nayun was just right as it was now. A temperature that was cold, but not too cold—in other words, “an uncomfortable acquaintance.” Anything beyond that would be burdensome for me.
“······Is that so.”
Chae Nayun left curtly.
I watched her back, then met Sven’s eyes over her shoulder. He did not avoid my gaze. He stared at me with eyes that showed no emotion whatsoever and tilted his head. That sequence of dry, detached actions gave me the creeps.
—Announcement. All cadets are advised to evacuate the dungeon immediately. I repeat. All cadets······
The voice sank down from the ceiling. The dungeon raid experience ended here.
I turned around to retrace the path I had taken.
“Huh?”
But then I found someone familiar. It was Yu Yeonha. Far in the distance, where only her silhouette was visible, Yu Yeonha was there. She seemed to have climbed over the wall after all, and was covered in dust from head to toe.
However, as we had just heard, the dungeon experience was over. In other words, she had not needed to climb over that barrier.
“Ugh······.”
With her eyes squeezed shut, Yu Yeonha trembled all over with frustration.
* * *
Several problems occurred during this dungeon raid experience. First, some of the internal cameras suddenly stopped working. Second, there was an error in the system. The monitoring personnel distribution had gotten mixed up, so the fact that the cameras had stopped working was discovered far too late. Third and last, the intrusion of an actual monster, not a mana doll, was detected. This was a very serious problem.
For those reasons, the experience was completely halted, and grade evaluations were also put on hold.
“Whoa. Seriously? A natural Magma Rock Monster?”
“Yeah. I heard it was intermediate-rank, grade 6.”
“Holy crap. So what happened? What happened?”
“Chae Nayun and Sven······.”
The cadets gathered outside the dungeon and chatted noisily, while the instructors called out the cadets’ names one by one to check whether anyone was missing.
······Then what exactly was all the trouble I went through in there for?
Yu Yeonha let out a deep sigh. Staggering under the sudden sense of emptiness and exhaustion, she spotted Chae Nayun peering toward the dungeon entrance up ahead. Yu Yeonha had many things she wanted to ask Chae Nayun.
“Nayun.”
“Huh? Oh. Yeonha. What is it?”
“Is your body okay? The Magma Rock Monster······.”
Yu Yeonha continued talking about something she wasn’t even curious about, then, around the time Chae Nayun started to look bored, brought up the topic related to Kim Hajin.
“Right. That Kim Hajin. The one you mentioned last time—”
“Huh? Ah~ Kim Hajin?”
“······Hm?”
But her reaction was completely different from back then. Compared to before, when she had growled while muttering Kim Hajin’s name, she now seemed strangely unreserved.
“Uh······ yeah. Kim Hajin.”
“What about him?”
“Well······ you said last time, didn’t you? That he—”
Chae Nayun lightly cut her off.
“Ah, that? I think I was mistaken.”
“······Pardon?”
Yu Yeonha was so dumbfounded that honorifics slipped out for a moment. Before, she had ranted about it as if vomiting blood, and now she was suddenly saying it had been a misunderstanding. When, as a matter of fact, I’m starting to think it wasn’t a misunderstanding at all.
“It was my mistake. Well, he’s not someone I’d want to be friendly with, but he’s not that sinister either.”
Mm, mm. That’s right. She said it herself and nodded as if convincing herself.
Yu Yeonha could only stare blankly at Chae Nayun. She was so flabbergasted she wanted to strangle her.
“Hey! Yo, Gim Suho!”
Chae Nayun suddenly shouted at the top of her lungs. At that lion’s roar, Yu Yeonha nearly had her eardrums blown out.
“Yeonha, I’m going!”
Chae Nayun brushed past Yu Yeonha and ran off somewhere. She shot forward like a puppy that had found its owner. Yu Yeonha wondered who she was rushing toward like that, and saw that Gim Suho had just come out of the dungeon entrance. Chae Nayun smacked him hard on the back, then stood in front of him as if blocking his way.
“Ah, you scared me.”
“Did anything happen with your team?”
“……It was no joke. I’m so exhausted I feel like I’m going to die.”
For reference, Gim Suho had chosen passageway number 8.
“I can tell from your face. You aged a decade.”
“……Really?”
Yu Yeonha watched the two of them with great interest. Seeing things going well between them somehow made her feel pleased. Come to think of it, Gim Suho really did seem a little like Chae Nayun’s older brother.
“Oh. Chae Nayun. You were here?”
But then Sin Jonghak suddenly wedged himself between the two of them as if to split them apart.
“Ugh.”
Yu Yeonha, who had been about to head over there whether she liked it or not because of Sin Jonghak, suddenly noticed a man watching Chae Nayun from far away.
“……What is he doing now?”
The man was Gim Hajin. But his eyes as he stared at Chae Nayun were very strange. Sad eyes, as if filled with deep worry and gloom. Yu Yeonha watched those nauseating eyes for a moment.
She quickly reached a conclusion.
“What the hell? Does he like Chae Nayun too? Wow. I seriously can’t believe this… What’s so good about a tomboy like her……”
Yu Yeonha trembled with genuine irritation welling up inside her.
Still, even if every other man liked that girl, Sin Jonghak absolutely could not.
She hurriedly walked toward Gim Suho, Sin Jonghak, and Chae Nayun.
────────────────────────────────────
────────────────────────────────────
The Djinn and Garisan (2)
11 p.m.
Only after a full 12 hours had passed since the dungeon攻略 experience began was I finally able to return to the dorm.
Instead of dispatching outside police or Heroes from the Association, Cube appeased the cadets by saying they would investigate the incident internally. It was true that a serious incident had occurred, but no cadets had died or been injured.
In other words, the “Djinn” who had secured executive positions in Cube had successfully covered up the incident. A large-scale external investigation into this incident probably wouldn’t take place until after the “second incident” was over.
“……I really must have been lucky.”
In any case, because of the aftermath of that chaos, the fitness room was closed too, so right now I was lazing around and looking through my laptop.
[An outrageous amount of luck comes into play, preventing Silent Assault!]
[A Narrow Escape (1/9) — The special stat “Accumulation of Luck” has partially activated!]
Avoiding Silent Assault had certainly been entirely thanks to luck, and because of that, the special stat “Accumulation of Luck” had activated.
Now, as for what special stats are… to explain that, I first have to bring up my settings related to “stats.”
In this worldview, stats are broadly divided into three categories.
Variable stats. Invariable stats. And special stats.
Variable and invariable stats are numerical representations of abilities that every person already possesses from birth. Even a newborn baby would have basic abilities such as strength, magic power, stamina, and intelligence.
However, special stats are abilities that “most humans do not possess.” For example, every human is born with “magic power,” the ability to handle mana. However, they are not born with “magic power utilization” and “mental strength,” the abilities that make use of that magic power. Those are only manifested through innate talent or acquired effort.
Thus, it is inevitable that even among cadets, the number of special stats differs. Most cadets have the two special stats of magic power utilization and mental strength, while Gim Suho, in addition to those two, also has “resistance,” and Chae Nayun additionally has “intuition.”
“……Hmm.”
[Accumulation of Luck — 11%]
And I had just gained one.
Right now, it was only at 11%, so there was nothing to check. There was no stat description either, so I had no idea what kind of stat it was.
Well, I’d probably be able to feel something from it eventually.
More important than this right now was the problem of Sven. What plan was Sven currently concocting? That was urgent. He was definitely making a move on Chae Nayun. There was a high probability something would happen the moment the two of them met alone. After all, one of the side effects of a Djinn contract was the “enlargement of emotions and obsession.”
Should I contact Chae Nayun or something?
……No.
I turned on my laptop. Somehow feeling like I was committing a sin