Chapter 226

Even though it had been described in the original, seeing it in person and reading it with my eyes were on completely different levels. I stared at the two corpses sprawled on the ground for a moment, then looked away.

‘Would it be better to join them.’

Clearing this Dungeon wasn’t my job in the first place. There were already plenty of Hunters inside this Dungeon, so I could just pretend I didn’t see anything, wait it out, and leave the moment it got cleared.

‘But if I screw up, a variable happens.’

I didn’t know if Im Haekyung knew even this much and shoved me in here anyway, but this was a place I wasn’t supposed to enter.

The time it took to clear this Dungeon, as stated in the original, was 128 hours. A ridiculous amount of time—five full days, plus another eight hours.

In other words, you could say they cleared it like a time attack, right before the Dungeon Break would happen.

If this S-rank Dungeon broke, it wouldn’t just be “a few monsters spill out.” It would be a fundamentally different kind of hell.

And there were two decisive variables that made it so I absolutely wasn’t supposed to enter this Dungeon. One was Song Hwayoung.

And one was... Kwon Taehan.

I grinned and looked up at the sky, dyed an odd color.

Isn’t it weird?

No matter how much this was a “grace period,” the world kept turning with Kwon Taehan’s traces perfectly erased.

Kwon Taehan regressing didn’t mean the Kwon Taehan from the earlier timeline vanished.

But no matter how hard I tried to find any trace, Kwon Taehan did not exist in this world.

Like someone who only remained as a record.

If there really was a “god,” it almost felt like they deliberately picked Kwon Taehan. A friendless loser bastard with no ties, but such a strong sense of duty that if you told him to sacrifice himself, he’d say okay and sprint in.

It was an excellent choice.

Well, whether it was a god’s choice or some kind of arrangement, there was no point arguing about it now. What I could focus on for sure was two things.

The “original,” and the “deleted rounds” I’d been peeking at so far.

Kwon Taehan’s life before his regression only showed up in brief flashbacks, so I hadn’t paid attention, but this period was actually pretty important to him.

Because this was when Kwon Taehan started making a name for himself.

In the original, Kwon Taehan’s first life barely shows up at all. The story starts with me killing # Nоvеlight # Kwon Taehan once, meaning it begins on his second round.

So if I wanted to figure out the point before the regression, I had no choice but to gather up the fragmented pieces of Kwon Taehan’s memories.

If you thought about it long enough, there was a part that, strangely, just didn’t fit.

At first I wondered if I was remembering wrong, but the more I glimpsed the “deleted rounds,” the more confident I became.

This wasn’t my memory being wrong, and it wasn’t a setting error.

It was just an important point Kwon Taehan had skipped over in narration.

‘Hm....’

There were a few reasons Kwon Taehan’s regression point got set to this exact period.

Because this was when Kwon Taehan’s S-rank awakening value—after getting dragged into a Dungeon—was revealed to the world.

But at the same time, this Dungeon was also the death point of the SH Guild Master.

If you think back to Kwon Taehan being with SH Guild in the first round...

It was a joke.

That would mean Kwon Taehan had already joined SH Guild before he awakened.

‘Bullshit.’

The fix that made it make sense was surprisingly simple.

What if Kwon Taehan’s “first” awakening wasn’t now?

In other words, what if “now” was the checkpoint where Kwon Taehan “reawakened” as S-rank?

Then the answer became clean.

If you think about it, it was ridiculous for an S-rank Hunter to be sitting in some tiny-ass guild “to grow.”

I hadn’t even considered making a hypothesis like this, because the original never pointed out something as important as a reawakening.

I understood, belatedly, why Kwon Taehan clung so hard to his duty, why he made such a big deal about “saving the world,” and why he was so bound up in the Status Window.

This was why this period got chosen as the start point.

From this moment on, Kwon Taehan had... received a kind of “choice.”

That he had to save the world...

‘Even so, charging in to save people out of obligation is still the bastard’s nature.’

Kwon Taehan only enters this Dungeon after Song Hwayoung dies, so the two of them never meet here anyway.

It was like Kwon Taehan had simply thrown away even the chance to run into Song Hwayoung and pull up his life before the regression point to talk to her.

The part I cared about was around here, too.

If Song Hwayoung met Kwon Taehan and talked to him... would she remember him?

While she was with me, the Hunter named Kwon Taehan inside “SH Guild” didn’t exist at all, like someone had cleared him out.

But there was no way to satisfy that curiosity.

Because the world got adjusted so that kind of thing wouldn’t happen in the first place.

That was what the Status Window called plausibility.

The past gets deleted.

There is no family.

There isn’t even anyone who remembers your existence.

Not only Kwon Taehan...

Me, too.

No one remembers “Seo Jehyun.”

My family was cleanly erased, too, and everything I could’ve been tied down by was deleted.

Really...

So easily.

Even after realizing all of it, I didn’t feel much.

It pissed me off for a moment, but I didn’t feel like forcing Song Hwayoung to live, and I didn’t feel like avoiding a collision with Kwon Taehan.

In that sense, I briefly thought maybe even a “god” would find me convenient too...

But anyway.

What mattered was right now.

As I stepped forward over the sticky ground, people came into view at the end of my gaze.

Every time I moved forward, listening to the wind that sounded like screaming, I felt this nasty weight, like the ground was trying to suck my feet down.

Should I join them, or stay like this?

There was still a little time before Im Haekyung entered the Dungeon.

I took a Stealth Orb out from inside my clothes and held it in my mouth. Right now was the time to stay still and watch...

“Stay calm!”

A familiar voice slammed into my ears.

‘Song Hwayoung.’

That relaxed look she usually had in Dungeons was completely gone. Even though the people at her side weren’t SH Guild Hunters, Song Hwayoung gave orders like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Past the people, a black mass caught my eye.

“Ugh....”

“What is that?”

The mass crawling along the ground and rushing toward us looked, at a glance, like a monster that lived in this Dungeon, but in reality, it wasn’t.

‘The Status Window isn’t coming up.’

One thing was certain: it wasn’t a living creature.

‘This is fun.’

The mass crawling up from the ground quickly started forming a shape. At first it looked like a giant larva, but it kept subdividing. Something like a head formed, then a torso, then legs in order.

“...A person?”

“Get a grip. You think that’s a person?”

Just like the Hunters up front said, it wasn’t a person—hell, it wasn’t even a monster.

But from the outside, it looked like a person covered in black, crawling toward us at high speed.

‘Kind of hilarious.’

As the human-shaped thing pushed in from behind, the person in front got crushed, then the mass formed again on top of that, then got crushed again, over and over.

By the time I snapped back to myself, the mass that had been far away was already right up close.

The Hunters prepared for combat like it was routine. They showed their disgust, but it didn’t look like fear had kicked in yet.

Chwaaaak—

A sword-user cut the mass in half. One Hunter burned it with fire, while another ripped it apart with their bare hands, tearing it into pieces.

Song Hwayoung raised a tool that emitted light toward the sky, like she’d done this a thousand times.

Flash—

The air brightened like a huge bolt of lightning, and countless shadows formed beneath the masses.

Song Hwayoung casually adjusted her grip, turning the item into a baton, then cleanly split through the shadows. In an instant, the masses burst apart, and that bizarre wind noise rose up.

These were Hunters confident in their own abilities. Even I had never seen a scene with this many A-rank Hunters.

The masses vanished quickly, absorbed back into the ground.

‘So far, so good.’

They probably hadn’t even practiced together, but they moved like they had—coordinating without hesitation, unleashing their Skills without holding back. At a glance, it looked like a complete stomp.

But the Dungeon didn’t end there.

I watched the mass crawling all the way to my feet, then shifted my leg aside and avoided it. Even though I was using a stealth item, the masses still clung to my leg fast.

I stared at them without emotion and brushed down my leg.

The things tangled around me vanished.

And then, that strange wind noise—stronger than before—howled violently.

“That is....”

I lifted my gaze from the ground and looked where the other Hunters’ eyes had gathered.

From there, an amount of mass that couldn’t even be compared to before was...

...pouring in.

The masses twisted their bodies, letting out screams like they were in agony. But this time, it didn’t stop there. The front row—right where my eyes landed—moved their faces around like they were really going to imitate humans, then tore the area around their mouths open long and wide.

“Fuck, what is that....”

They moved their mouths like they were smiling, carving out huge grooves, then got swallowed again by something like dripping black liquid and repeatedly lost their expressions.

“It’s not human. You know that, right?”

A different Hunter grabbed the Hunter up front by the arm, talking like they were trying to brace them.

But around this point, wouldn’t you start thinking this?

“I know.”

“Yeah, then....”

“But how long is this going to...?”

The Hunter who couldn’t finish the sentence lifted their gaze and stared into empty air.

In their hugely dilated pupils, a familiar emotion showed itself.

Fear.