Chapter 152

The Guild Masters let out a light sigh, then one by one, they rose from their seats and began to exit the meeting room. Gihyeon Park and Jihan Kim also seemed to have a lot to prepare, as they exchanged a nod with Cho-i and hurried out of the meeting room. Now, only the members of Paehyeok remained. Cho-i Hyeon clicked her tongue and stood up.

“Is there anything I need to prepare?”

“No. Just manage your condition well.”

“You just blurted everything out without a word. And said I had to take the lead. Isn’t that too much?”

“You were going to take the lead anyway.”

“That’s true.”

Cho-i grinned. Nara Shim felt disturbed watching her. Yet, at the same time, she found it admirable. If it were her, she would only be anxious, but Cho-i was saying she would take the lead so casually.

‘No. She can’t be thinking nothing, can she?’

Nara Shim sighed. But Cho-i Hyeon was indeed thinking nothing.

“But for a while now, I’ve had a feeling I’m missing something, and I have no idea what it is.”

“Missing something?”

“Yeah.”

At her words, everyone began to ponder together. But since nothing specific came to mind, they all just kept their mouths shut. Cho-i Hyeon scratched her head and clicked her tongue, tasting nothing.

“Well, if I don’t know, how would you guys know?”

“I’ll think about it.”

Meanwhile, Taeyang Kang said something commendable. Cho-i Hyeon stood up, patted Taeyang Kang’s head a few times, and then headed towards the door.

“Then I’ll go home and rest, so call me if anything comes up.”

“Hey, let’s go together!”

“Let’s go. Let’s go. I’m hungry.”

“Anyway, no one cares about food as much as you do. You should pack plenty of provisions.”

“Alright.”

Cho-i took Nara Shim’s joke seriously. Nara Shim, having nothing more to say, clicked her tongue and then walked out the door with Cho-i Hyeon. Taeyang Kang naturally followed behind them. Cho-i Hyeon smiled brightly when she saw Taeyang Kang following her.

“Are you going to relax with me too?”

“Yeah.”

“Not bad.”

Cho-i felt Nara Shim’s awkwardness but paid no mind and kept walking.

* * *

The three sat in a circle in the living room. Nara Shim sighed while checking her equipment. She was worried because she didn’t have much in the way of gear.

“Other people must have a lot of good equipment, right? I’m the only one who doesn’t. Just me.”

“It’s a good thing you won’t be on the front lines.”

“Still, you never know. Just in case.”

“Then, want to go to the department store?”

“Ugh, fine. I could save my money and still die in there.”

“Hey, why think about dying?”

“You say that because you won’t die.”

“Hahaha.”

Cho-i Hyeon took it lightly. Lightly. She had always lived that way. In fact, she didn’t take anything, even an EX-Rank dungeon, that seriously. If they failed, everyone would die, and if they succeeded, a few might survive. She looked at Nara Shim and Taeyang Kang.

“Are you ready to die?”

“Hey, don’t say such unlucky things.”

“You were just talking about dying earlier.”

Then Taeyang Kang replied.

“Hunters are destined to die in dungeons anyway.”

“That’s true.”

Cho-i Hyeon nodded in agreement, and Nara Shim also fell silent. Hunters die in dungeons. That was true.

“If I’m the only one who survives, that would be a hell in itself.”

Cho-i Hyeon scratched her cheek. If she failed to clear the dungeon and was the only one to survive, she could suffer eternally inside the EX-Rank dungeon, just like when she first entered the hidden dungeon. Thinking about it made her realize a little bit how difficult it would be to conquer the EX-Rank dungeon, but it didn’t make her too serious.

“What’s the point of us talking about this now? We’ll only know once we go in.”

Cho-i Hyeon said indifferently and opened her inventory. She began to check her equipment one by one. Honestly, they were all top-grade items, so there was nothing to fix, but she had to check them just in case. As she was doing so, Cho-i’s eyes suddenly fell upon an item occupying a corner of her inventory.

[Prophet’s Diary (S-grade)]

“Oh, I remember now, I had something like this, didn’t I?”

The book, made of worn-out leather, was tied with a string. When Cho-i Hyeon took the book out of her inventory and placed it on the floor, Nara Shim and Taeyang Kang looked at it with curiosity.

“What is this?”

“Oh, I got it when I went to the dungeon last time.”

She slowly opened the book. She had assumed she wouldn’t be able to read it anyway.

“The Calamity that befell us is… What? Why can I read this?”

Cho-i Hyeon frowned and looked at the diary. The writing was legible, even though she hadn’t learned to read in the hidden dungeon. Nara Shim looked at her and said,

“What? It doesn’t look like writing, so how are you reading it?”

“I don’t know either? What is this?”

Cho-i Hyeon flipped through the pages one by one, then suddenly remembered that she had the Eye that Sees the Core. More precisely, it was the eye of ‘the Entity.’

‘Could it be because of the Entity?’

She couldn’t be sure, but it was highly probable. She began to read the diary.

“Calamity will give birth to Calamity. Thus, a shattered world will devour a world, and the descendants of that world will once again become Calamity and destroy the next world.”

“What does that mean?”

“Hmm, I think I roughly understand.”

It seemed to mean that, just as the Entity had gone berserk, a world shattered by Calamity would become another Calamity and engulf the next world. It seemed the Prophet wasn’t a Prophet for nothing. However, even a world with such a being ultimately couldn’t stop Calamity. Cho-i Hyeon looked at the next page with a troubled expression.

“The world that severs the Entity, there, surely…”

Cho-i Hyeon furrowed her brows.

“God’s World will open.”

The Prophet’s Diary, like a diary and not a book, had no particular content on each page. The subsequent records were mostly about the destruction of God’s World. The only revelation was that one line. She couldn’t tell if it was predicting the future or simply writing down what was desired, but what was certain was that it wasn’t particularly helpful to her in the present. Cho-i closed the book.

“For now, that’s…”

Cho-i Hyeon suddenly remembered something while talking. That is, something she had forgotten until now. She now realized what the Entity was that kept bothering her, but she didn’t know exactly what it was.

“Then what am I?”

Cho-i Hyeon muttered with an ambiguous expression. Nara Shim and Taeyang Kang looked at her as if asking what she meant. Cho-i blinked once.

“If what’s inside my body is the King of this Calamity, what happens to me?”

“Are you talking about that Mantis?”

“Yes.”

Taeyang Kang looked at Nara Shim as if asking what she meant, and Nara Shim briefly explained the story of her hidden dungeon. The hidden dungeon that appeared before her, the mantis-type monsters that came out of it. And the ring on Cho-i Hyeon’s finger. Yes, that ring.

“Now that I think about it, this ring…”

Cho-i Hyeon spread her fingers. The ring on her index finger was still there. And when she grabbed the ring and pulled it off without thinking, the ring came off very easily.

“……?”

“……?”

“Why?”

While Nara Shim and Cho-i Hyeon were momentarily lost in thought, Taeyang Kang, who knew nothing, asked with an innocent face. Nara Shim looked at the removed ring for a moment and said with a troubled expression.

“Didn’t you say this ring wouldn’t come off?”

“I did, didn’t I?”

“But it came off?”

“It did, didn’t it?”

“Since when could you take it off?”

“I don’t know either. It came off when I took it off just now.”

Cho-i Hyeon examined the ring. But then.

[empty ring(E)]

“Huh?”

“Why?”

“Look at this ring.”

Nara Shim also examined the ring. And as soon as she confirmed it was an empty ring, she tilted her head.

“Didn’t you say this was a hidden item?”

“I did, didn’t I?”

“But now it says ’empty ring’?”

“Since when has it been like that?”

“Think carefully. Your hidden item is gone!”

“If it’s an empty ring…”

She thought that perhaps it became an empty ring when it hatched. The thought that what had been parasitic in her body through the ring became an empty ring when it completely moved into her body. But at that, Nara Shim tilted her head.

“You think what was parasitic in your body through the ring became an empty ring when it moved into your body?”

“Right?”

“Then it means it’s completely attached to you.”

“Is that just one or two days?”

“No, no. This is a very serious problem.”

“Why?”

“It means what was inside you has become one with you.”

“Right?”

“Then are you a human or a monster?”

“Oh?”

Cho-i Hyeon tilted her head in the same direction as Nara Shim. Indeed, she had never thought about that on Beondo Island. Cho-i Hyeon was about to say that, but then changed her words.

“I’m human.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because I think I’m human.”

“Is that so?”

“Being human, you know. Not everyone born human is human.”

“Please don’t go into such philosophical talk.”

“But I really think so.”

Just then, Taeyang Kang quietly interjected between the two.

“So, the one thing we know for sure is that there’s something inside Cho-i Hyeon’s body. Right?”

“Right?”

“Again?”

“Then that means you’re neither a being of this world nor that world.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. So, I don’t think you’ll be affected by this EX-Rank dungeon.”

“You mean there’s no chance of me being affected by the dungeon and turning into a monster?”

Then Nara Shim, who had been listening silently, held up a finger.

“Since that Mantis took over your body to carry on the will of the Ruined World, wouldn’t it prevent you from turning into a monster, precisely to fulfill that will?”

“Is that so?”

Cho-i Hyeon looked at Nara Shim with a curious expression.

“Your deductive reasoning is getting better and better.”

“And whose fault is that? Whose fault is it?”