Chapter 97

Taehyeok Sa picked up a bone fragment and put it away. When he placed it in his item window, its name appeared and it was stored.

[Fragment of Former King Mantis’s Corpse] [A hard bone fragment. It seems unlikely to be destroyed by most things.]

Taehyeok Sa hummed and put away a few large fragments. Then he looked at Cho-i Hyeon. Cho-i Hyeon was looking at the wall, then she started picking up the fallen fragments and trying to put them together like a puzzle, but it didn’t seem to be going well.

“Ah! It just won’t fit!”

“But you did find something out, didn’t you?”

Taehyeok Sa interjected.

“For example?”

“You son of a bitch, you came at a good time.”

Cho-i Hyeon lunged at Taehyeok Sa in an instant, and Taehyeok Sa opened his arms and embraced Cho-i Hyeon tightly. Cho-i Hyeon, who was unexpectedly embraced by him, showed a lot of question marks and stomped on his foot. Taehyeok Sa offered his other foot as if it didn’t hurt.

“What is this bastard doing? So annoying!”

Cho-i Hyeon kindly stomped on the foot Taehyeok Sa offered her, and Cho-i Hyeon soon found herself standing on Taehyeok Sa’s instep, walking with him every time he moved. Nara Shim, seeing this, said with a look that asked what the two of them were doing.

“She said, what was it again?”

As Nara Shim looked at Cho-i Hyeon, Cho-i Hyeon, still trapped in Taehyeok Sa’s arms, pushed him away and said,

“I thought that just as planets have different cycles, worlds might have different times.”

“Hmm?”

Taehyeok Sa didn’t budge easily and pressed down on Cho-i Hyeon’s waist. Cho-i Hyeon fretted with a look that said, ‘Why is this jerk acting like this today?’

“Is there a dungeon timer?”

“Of course.”

“How much time has passed?”

Taehyeok Sa took out the dungeon timer from his item window and raised an eyebrow.

“Time…”

“Almost none, right?”

“Yes.”

“It was the same last time. But in dungeons with angels and demons, time flowed similarly.”

“You’re saying that time flows differently in each hidden dungeon?”

“Probably? To be honest, I think time flows extremely fast here. While one minute passes outside, days or more pass here.”

“Then if we stay here too long, will we age faster too?”

“I don’t know. The watch runs on outside time, after all.”

Cho-i Hyeon wriggled out of Taehyeok Sa’s arms. Taehyeok Sa no longer held her. Cho-i Hyeon, with an irritated look, brushed off her clothes and looked at Nara Shim.

“Is it because mantises have a shorter lifespan than us? I don’t know the exact reason.”

“It might be natural, just like planets have different cycles.”

“Then I have a question. Why do regular dungeons run on the same time as our world?”

“If there’s truly a ‘reason’ for dungeons to appear, it’s possible they’re forcibly synchronized with our time.”

“That’s an interesting thought.”

Cho-i Hyeon sighed and looked at the bone fragments.

“More importantly, why did the Mantis Queen’s Succession Trial start again?”

Then Taehyeok Sa, who had been thinking, chin in hand, suddenly spoke.

“One trial was for a host to inherit the Legacy.”

“And?”

“The other was probably a trial for the strongest male in the world.”

“That makes sense, it makes sense, but…”

Cho-i Hyeon looked at Taehyeok Sa with a sour expression, and when Taehyeok Sa met her eyes, he gave her a smiling glance. When she turned away in disgust as if she had seen something unpleasant, Taehyeok Sa returned his curved eyes to normal and quickly scanned his surroundings.

“But even for a hidden dungeon, it has some peculiar aspects.”

“Right?”

Cho-i Hyeon said. The experiences of hidden dungeons she had heard from others so far were just dungeons with excessively high difficulty and good quality items, but they didn’t seem to have such detailed conditions.

“We’ll have to find out what the differences are gradually.”

At his words, Cho-i Hyeon, as if remembering something she had forgotten, drew her knife. She held up her arm and thinly sliced the skin on the inside of her forearm. Nara Shim, who saw the entity, was horrified, and Taehyeok Sa frowned. He then grabbed her arm.

“There’s no need to cut it that deeply.”

“Damn it, then you should have said something sooner.”

Cho-i Hyeon said, blood dripping from her forearm. She then handed the skin fragment she had cut off to Taehyeok Sa. Taehyeok Sa looked as if he didn’t know what to do with it, but for now, he took out a handkerchief, carefully wrapped it, and squeezed out the blood. Taehyeok Sa had a look on his face as if he didn’t know what he was doing, and Nara Shim, who was watching from the side, felt the same. Only Cho-i Hyeon, unaware of any problem, shook her arm. Some blood splattered, then it gradually began to regenerate.

“It’s not like I’m draining blood from meat…”

Taehyeok Sa put the flesh, wrapped in a handkerchief, into his coat pocket. Honestly, even after putting it in, he wondered what he was doing. One side of his coat became damp with blood.

“Are you going to look at other places?”

“I’m thinking about it. Honestly, I brought all the Mantises from there to here at that time, but I think there might be more in that forest.”

“Then let’s go.”

Taehyeok Sa took the first step. Cho-i Hyeon looked around, confirmed there was nothing more to read, then sighed and followed him. Nara Shim walked beside Cho-i Hyeon and asked,

“But this hidden dungeon is a bit special, isn’t it?”

“Why?”

“No, if getting items from hidden dungeons makes you all like that, then I don’t need hidden items… Ouch!”

“You’re asking for it, you really are.”

Cho-i Hyeon stomped on Nara Shim’s foot.

“My instep feels broken. Ouch!”

“I didn’t step that hard, did I?”

Cho-i Hyeon grumbled and chased after Taehyeok Sa, who was moving away in the distance, and Nara Shim, not wanting to be alone in such a place, also diligently followed Cho-i Hyeon, even though she claimed her instep was broken. The three decided to split up and look for something. Nara Shim seemed reluctant, though. The forest was silent, and not a single breeze blew, like a manufactured forest.

“Now that I think about it, doesn’t the wind not blow in dungeons?”

“I guess so?”

Nara Shim said as if she had never thought about it before. Indeed, Taehyeok Sa couldn’t recall ever feeling wind inside a dungeon unless Taehyeok Sa had deliberately created it.

“Maybe it’s because it’s a created world?”

Taehyeok Sa answered Cho-i Hyeon’s question.

“Maybe so.”

“As I told you last time, you know jack shit.”

Cho-i Hyeon grumbled and headed left.

“Then I’ll see you at the exit later.”

Nara Shim headed right, and Taehyeok Sa stood still. Cho-i assumed he would go straight down the middle path, so she stopped paying attention to him and started down the left path. The forest still looked like a manufactured model, and there wasn’t a single Mantis left. There were no letters carved into the large stones either.

‘Hmm. Still, since I can come back here now, I don’t need to rush too much, right?’

She went deeper into the forest. The forest, devoid of any animals, was even eerie, but it wasn’t enough to scare Cho-i Hyeon. Of course, Nara Shim was completely terrified right now, but Cho-i Hyeon, far away, didn’t know that. But then, there was a rustling sound behind her. Cho-i Hyeon immediately drew her sword, turned around, and thrust it. Clang! A wind blew. Taehyeok Sa was blocking the flying sword with Telekinesis. As Cho-i Hyeon chuckled, Taehyeok Sa said, as if dumbfounded,

“I know you attacked me even though you knew it was me.”

“I figured you’d block it just fine on your own.”

Cho-i Hyeon said, putting her sword back.

“More importantly, I thought you’d go down the middle path, so why did you follow me?”

“Because I didn’t think there would be anything to gain.”

“What kind of confidence is that?”

“A hunch.”

“So, an SS-Rank’s hunches are also extraordinary, I guess?”

“Usually, yes. Even S-Ranks’ hunches are extraordinary compared to others.”

“Oh…”

That’s true. Choi Hyeon frowned, not wanting to admit it, but he was right. Intuition develops as one’s rank increases, and now that Choi’s intuition as an S-Rank has grown incomparably higher than before, it was hard to imagine how strong an SS-Rank’s intuition would be.

“So, why did you come running after me?”

“I thought it was about time I told you.”

“Told me what?”

“If you’re going to devour me, devour me last.”

“What?”

Choi Hyeon’s eyes widened. She thought she didn’t understand what he was saying. But Taehyeok Sa’s face was quite serious. As Choi Hyeon tilted her head, Taehyeok Sa continued.

“Only I can stop you.”

“…Do you even have the power to stop me?”

“I have the highest probability, at least.”

“Zhixuan of China is also an SS-Rank like you.”

“But he has no reason to save the world from a monster like you. Ah, maybe if his own life is at stake, he might step up.”

Taehyeok Sa’s words were sharp. Choi Hyeon didn’t even frown at the word ‘monster.’ Because what was inside her belly was literally a monster. A monster that devours people. A monster that controls her body. Anyway, to Choi Hyeon, this was a monster, and she had somewhat thought that she, who was one with the Entity, might also be a monster.

“Do you have a reason to save the world?”

“Yes.”

“What reason?”

“I don’t need to tell you that.”

She knew from Yeonhan Kim that Taehyeok Sa had a sense of mission. However, she had not heard where that sense of mission originated. Choi Hyeon somehow became curious and spoke.

“If you tell me, I’ll think about it.”

“My reason?”

“Yes.”

Then Taehyeok Sa slowly opened his mouth.