“Help me!”

AJ screamed. Something black was already rushing towards him.

AJ’s Shadows, the yellow Chakram, were circling in the air.

He tried to slow its advance by exerting his maximum yellow Supernatural Ability forward, but it was too fast for that to make any difference.

The moment AJ’s face contorted.

A green Light Beam blocked his path.

Kwaaang!

Black and green collided violently in the air. It was the black that was repelled.

The black creature flipped its body in the air, shaking its head wildly. The impact seemed to have been considerable.

It had the head of a bird, the torso of a human, and wings of a moderate size on its back.

It’s not very big. It’s about twice the size of a person. In terms of sheer bulk, it’s comparable to a monster from a D-grade, E-rank Dungeon.

But its strength was on an entirely different level.

Unlike other monsters, it even uses a curved spear.

At this point, it was hard to tell if it was a monster or an alien race.

“Are you okay?”

Setsu flew over quickly and asked. AJ belatedly retrieved his chakram and waved his hand as if to say he was fine.

“I just saw my deceased grandmother for a moment…”

“Be careful. If you get hurt, Benjamin won’t send us out again, will he?”

Setsu scanned the surroundings. There were five bird-headed monsters in total.

They flapped their wings, watching the hunters with cold eyes.

The emotionless eyes of the birds made them look even more eerie.

These are monsters that inhabit the Highland Zone, which boasts the highest difficulty even in A-rank Dungeons.

And they’re not even kings, just simple soldiers.

Nevertheless, even the few hunters who were among the best in the entire Dungeon in terms of individual power couldn’t let their guard down.

If it had been other hunters, approaching would have been impossible.

“I have to admit it at this point. They’re stronger than I thought. These bird-brained bastards.”

“Benjamin already warned us about that several times.”

“Benjamin probably didn’t know it would be this bad either.”

“…He probably did.”

“Setsu, if you keep saying sensible things, you’ll grow hair on your butt.”

“You seem to have forgotten, but I’ll be an adult next year.”

AJ was prone to saying a lot of nonsense, so Setsu vaguely replied while injecting stronger supernatural ability into his shadows.

The green light deepened, and the shadows took an attacking stance.

She had hair of a moderate length and wore a jacket and pants.

Her facial features were not clear enough to recognize, but it was clear that she was a middle-aged woman.

“Let’s just catch five and go back. We’ll get ourselves killed at this rate.”

“Right, points are good, but life comes first. Let’s go with Secret Ultra Formation B.”

“…What’s that?”

“Kill them as fast as possible!”

AJ combined two chakrams to make a large one and then threw it into the air. The yellow chakram spun furiously and shot forward.

“Sigh.”

Setsu let out a small sigh. The few hunters were free-spirited, friendly, and all good, but their hunting had a somewhat unsystematic aspect.

They were used to individual play, and their overly strong supernatural abilities were also a problem.

They were strong enough not to need systematic combat, and because they didn’t really make enemies, their strategy was a bit haphazard compared to their combat ability.

So sometimes when he hunted with the few hunters, he often thought of Kim Songcheol.

He missed the sense of stability he felt hunting under Kim Songcheol’s lead.

‘It can’t be helped. There aren’t many hunters like him anyway…’

Setsu shook off his distracting thoughts and began to control his shadows.

Shadows, leaving a long afterimage, instantly moved and appeared right in front of the Monster. In that state, a punch thrown half a beat faster.

That movement somewhat resembled the form of the Celestial Spirit Maiden’s Heaven-Shattering Grand Divine Art.

BOOM!

A powerful punch that distorted space.

The Monster tried to block it by extending its spear shaft, but it shattered the spear shaft and pierced through its chest.

After shattering its head with a roundhouse kick, Shadows moved as if flickering.

This time, it rapidly struck four different places in turn, delivering light attacks to the Monsters.

The green Shadows reappeared behind the Monster.

As soon as a deep green light poured from Shadows’ hand, sealing the Monster’s movements, a yellow Chakram flew by and severed the Monster’s neck.

CRACK!

The green and yellow Shadows darted through the air, dealing with the Monsters.

It took less than five minutes to deal with all five of them.

“Over there…!”

Setsu pointed towards the high mountain range. Dozens of Monsters were flying over.

There was no need to fight the reinforcements. AJ and Setsu immediately turned around and began to run away.

“Run!”

AJ even created a sonic boom as he shouted. Of course, it was a meaningless remark, as Setsu was already ahead.

“Stop making a fuss and hurry up.”

“When I said ‘run away,’ I meant for us to run away together!”

Setsu sped up even more, with AJ struggling to keep up behind her.

As the Hunters were determined to escape, the Monsters soon stopped their pursuit. The Monsters called ‘Angels’ of the Highland Zone do not venture outside their territory.

After they were far enough that the Angels were out of sight.

AJ wiped his sweat and spoke.

“We did a good job today. The Points are sweet.”

“We earned quite a few Points. Aside from it being a bit dangerous.”

“What are you worried about? Your aunt is protecting you.”

AJ glanced at Shadows, which was being absorbed back into Setsu’s body.

“She’s my maternal aunt, not my paternal aunt.”

“In our world, we call both paternal and maternal aunts the same thing.”

“…Tsk.”

The Dungeon’s translation function is not that shoddy. If the speaker thought it was a paternal aunt, it would be translated as such.

Setsu knew that fact, but she didn’t say anything more. She knew well that talking about it would only be a waste of breath.

Instead, Setsu briefly recalled her maternal aunt’s face, which had smiled fleetingly.

Setsu’s mother had three children, and her second maternal aunt was an incredibly strong supernatural ability user.

She was the strongest in Setsu’s world, and there was a reason she was made into Shadows.

To create Shadows, a powerful mental image is required. If the subject is human, various conditions such as closeness, strong memories, and affection for the subject must be met.

One of the people who met those conditions was Setsu’s maternal aunt.

Beias Dibeolla.

He was a Hunter who was said to have prevented the world’s destruction if he hadn’t died.

“If I had a bit of a strong bloodline, I would have awakened an even stronger Supernatural Ability. Genetics are important for Supernatural Abilities, you know.”

“Mother wasn’t that strong of a Hunter. Father was even stronger.”

Setsu’s parents were also Hunters who had awakened Supernatural Abilities.

Like most Hunters, they acted to protect ordinary people in the face of a national crisis, and ultimately died doing their duty.

Because of this, Setsu became an orphan, but at least he inherited a Supernatural Ability.

“My parents were ordinary people.”

AJ shrugged his shoulders.

“Isn’t that even more amazing? If your parents are ordinary people and you’re that strong.”

“Is that so? Hehe.”

He grinned, seemingly satisfied.

“But you said you have other Shadows, right? You never use them.”

He heard that Setsu had two Shadows. One was his aunt. The other was another person. But no Hunter in the Pure had ever seen the other Shadow.

“Ah… that’s my ultimate move. I get exhausted if I use it, so I can’t use it much.”

“Then next time, should we try going into the Angels’ main base? I want to see you use that Shadow.”

“Do you really want to die? Even if you come back alive, I don’t think Benjamin will leave you alone.”

“Tsk, Setsu. I’ll give you a piece of advice.”

“What is it?”

Setsu’s expression was not very trusting.

Nothing that had come out of AJ’s mouth so far had been particularly helpful in life.

“You’re too submissive, not like a Supernatural Ability user. Supernatural Ability users need to be unpredictable.”

When AJ snapped his fingers, dozens of small, ring-sized Chakrams appeared in front of him.

He was manipulating Shadows freely.

It was a different kind of utilization ability compared to Setsu, who was strong but had a fixed image.

“Is that so?”

Setsu answered vaguely. Half-listening to AJ’s words was pretty much a passive skill for the Hunters of Pure.

Just then, Setsu felt the Medal in his pocket vibrate.

He took it out and saw Kim Songcheol’s location displayed.

He hadn’t contacted him separately; the alarm came because he had approached nearby.

‘Huh? Is he nearby?’

The last time he met Kim Songcheol was two weeks ago.

Kim Songcheol was busy with Lucifer, and Setsu was spending more time with the Hunters of Pure, so they naturally met less often.

“You go ahead. I have somewhere to stop by.”

Setsu turned, taking the opportunity to escape AJ’s banter and meet Kim Songcheol.

“What? Why does it feel like everyone’s avoiding me?”

“It’s not like that, so don’t worry.”

Setsu reassured AJ and then flew through the sky with all his might.

After flying a little, a powerful explosion sound spread from afar.

‘Could he be fighting Lucifer…?’

Setsu increased his altitude and slowed down.

Before long, he spotted Kim Songcheol and Lucifer clashing in an open field.

‘Is that Lucifer…?’

It was the first time he had seen Lucifer firsthand. Lucifer had only been pursuing Kim Songcheol, and there was no reason for Setsu to encounter Lucifer.

Black hair and white clothes.

Barefoot.

Those distinctive features were the first thing that caught his eye.

‘He looks completely… just like an ordinary person…’

As expected, Setsu felt no aura from Lucifer.

However, his movements were incredible, regardless.

Setsu’s dynamic vision struggled to keep up.

Lucifer was standing on the ground, deflecting all of Kim Songcheol’s attacks.

He was only using one arm and one leg.

Furthermore, one leg was merely used as a support to balance his body; he wasn’t even using it for defense.

Are Kim Songcheol’s attacks normal?

Even as massive electric shock currents, as if to swallow space, rained down, Lucifer was blocking the attacks with his bare hands.

With a light swing of his hand, an electric shock current was deflected, losing its target, and he even swung his hand like a sword to cut through an electric shock.

Even if he was only defending for now, if he started attacking, it felt like his head would fly off without him even knowing when he died.

Setsu unconsciously swallowed hard.

‘Last time, he said he won against Lucifer using only one arm, so I thought he wasn’t as strong as I imagined…’

A complete misjudgment.

If there was a mistake, it was thinking lightly of it because Kim Songcheol spoke of it lightly.

Setsu took his eyes off Lucifer and looked at Kim Songcheol.

He was unleashing an enormous amount of magic.

The surrounding mana resonated with Kim Songcheol, vibrating, and the resulting tremors were intense enough for Setsu to feel.

“…”

Setsu watched the fierce attacks, then suddenly focused on Kim Songcheol’s face.

The magic Kim Songcheol was using now, each one was lethal.

In other words, he was using magic of incredibly high difficulty.

His concentration soared, and his face hardened.

But that wasn’t all.

Setsu saw something else, and it was something he discovered because he had watched Kim Songcheol most closely.

If it were the usual Kim Songcheol, no matter how strong Lucifer was, he wouldn’t have such an intense expression.

There had been several times when his life was in danger while traversing dungeons with Kim Songcheol.

Each time, Kim Songcheol’s expression had certainly hardened, but there wasn’t an intensely fierce feeling.

‘What exactly is at stake…?’

That Kim Songcheol was facing someone with such an expression.

It wouldn’t be simply for his own life.

Setsu knew Kim Songcheol better than anyone. That’s why he felt uneasy.

He wouldn’t fight like that in most situations.

Then what could that situation be? Nothingness?

What kind of burden is Kim Songcheol carrying?

I don’t know.

But he had a hunch about one thing.

That something big was coming.

“Brother…”

Setsu quietly called out Kim Songcheol’s name.

And then he tightly shut his mouth.

He had received a lot of help until now.

Now it was Setsu’s turn to help Kim Songcheol.

Kim Songcheol wouldn’t think so, but Setsu decided so.

Setsu immediately turned and flew towards Pyu.

It was a time when even greater power was needed.