EFME 114

An alert flew in, telling them to come straight to the Guild Leader’s office. Sunyul headed to the office along with Bada.

“Lim Sunyul.”

“Yes.”

“An S-rank dungeon has appeared in Gangneung. Word is that it’s a massive S-rank dungeon.”

Muyoung stared at Sunyul.

“Can you make it there?”

“Yes, I can go.”

Sunyul could go anywhere he had been to at least once before.

Upon checking whether this still worked even now after losing his memories, it turned out that as long as Sunyul had a certain amount of information about a place he had previously visited, movement was possible.

And originally, Sunyul used to travel all across the country, making a point to visit local administrative offices or famous landmarks in each region.

“Don’t overdo it. I’ll be setting off right away too.”

“Yes.”

“…I’ll confirm the location for you.”

The voice of Muyoung as he spoke was somewhat heavy.

Unlike [Flight], [Warp] was a skill that allowed movement strictly limited to Sunyul himself, making this an inevitable choice.

Had the dungeon rank been even just an A-rank—or at the very least, had they been afforded just a little more time—Muyoung would have undoubtedly chosen the route of moving together with Sunyul.

Oblivious to the dark thoughts churning inside Muyoung, Sunyul merely worried to himself, wondering if this dungeon was really that severe.

“It’s here. Don’t get hurt before I arrive.”

“Yes, I’ll work hard!”

The closest place to the newly appeared dungeon was a hotel located right on the beachfront. Sunyul searched for a photo of the hotel to confirm it and focused his mind.

[Using the skill ‘Researching Magician: Warp’.]

The location changed in an instant.

Sunyul looked around to find where the dungeon might be. And right away, he could tell why Muyoung had called it a massive S-rank dungeon.

“What is… this….”

Though he had imagined a fairly large structure when hearing it was massive, it wasn’t to this extent.

It was in the shape of an absolutely gargantuan tower… It looked as tall as—maybe even taller than—the tower Sunyul had previously seen when visiting Jamsil.

Monsters were crawling down the walls from a huge gate fixed at the very top of that dungeon.

There was no time to stand around being shocked for long.

Almost simultaneously with his traits loudly triggering, he activated his skills one after another.

Magic bullets tore through the night sky darkened by [Polar Night]. Hit by the consecutive volleys of magic bullets, several monsters plunged into the sea below.

The silver lining was that most of the monsters were concentrated along the shoreline, keeping the damage to a minimum.

As Sunyul was about to attack again, someone caught his eye. A hunter, dressed in what looked like a tourist’s outfit to anyone watching but holding a greatsword in one hand, was waving from below. Sunyul flew down toward him.

“Hunter Lim Sunyul! Thank you for the help. But, inside that ocean, there are more. The monsters….”

“…Understood. Fortunately, it looks like there aren’t any flying-type monsters, so I’ll guard near the gate.”

“Thank you! I, I will….”

“Please help with the evacuation.”

“Yes, sorry!”

The rank of the hunter he saw via his skill was C. The rank of the monsters crawling out over there was at least A. This wasn’t a monster a C-rank hunter could handle.

Sunyul looked at the spot he had attacked earlier. Most of the monsters had fallen, but not all of them were dead. A few survivors were squirming and struggling frantically.

[Magic Marksman] had the advantage of always hitting the target, but its destructive power was weak for an S-rank skill.

Of course, Sunyul could silence an opponent through concentrated heavy fire by unleashing hundreds of magic bullets at once… but since he didn’t know how many monsters would emerge from the dungeon, there was no need to waste mana like that.

Sunyul decided to use a different offensive skill. Fortunately, since it was the open sea, he could freely cast area-devastating skills like [Meteor] or [Judgment of Light] to his heart’s content.

As weapons crafted from giant boulders and light rained down from the sky, the monsters quickly died and sank. To be absolutely sure, Sunyul recklessly spammed his skills into the unseen depths of the sea as well.

The only uncomfortable thing was…

‘These things look similar to the strange monsters I saw before.’

They resembled those strange monsters that had suddenly burst out from the Jeju S—19 dungeon. Though these weren’t dangling any camouflage fish.

It was while Sunyul had been holding the line for a good while. The A-rank hunters of Gangneung City arrived as reinforcements.

“Hunter Lim Sunyul! Don’t overexert yourself and come down!”

He didn’t particularly feel like he was overexerting himself, but Sunyul obediently came down. Then, he cast buff skills on everyone.

After that, he blocked the monsters alongside the A-rank hunters of Gangneung City.

As expected of the dungeon’s staggering scale, the number of pouring monsters was no joke either.

An absurd number of monsters poured out to the point where he wondered exactly when it would ever stop, but the numbers gradually dwindled, and around the time the surroundings grew dim…

The S-rank hunters, including Muyoung, arrived in Gangneung.

The moment the S-rank hunters arrived, Sunyul received an order to pull back. Although he was still perfectly fine, Sunyul quietly stepped to the rear.

Muyoung thoroughly examined Sunyul with a worried face, and only after confirming he was unharmed did he let out a sigh.

“I shouldn’t have made a guild.”

“Why?”

“Because then I have to make the decision to send you to places like this.”

Sunyul’s face turned red at the words Muyoung blurted out so casually.

“I like it because I can be of help to you, Guild Leader.”

“…Right.”

“The title ‘Guild Leader’ also… feels nice.”

Even though it wasn’t a big deal, his face flushed for no reason. Muyoung pulled the bashful Sunyul close, planted a light kiss on his forehead, and pulled away.

“It would have been better if it weren’t a situation like this.”

“…True.”

It was a great shame, but it was a time to separate public and private matters. Sunyul gradually suppressed his fluttering heart. Muyoung watched the striving Sunyul before opening his mouth.

“I heard that a dungeon of this scale appeared in other countries at almost the exact same time as ours.”

“Really?”

Why did dungeons like this appear simultaneously? What did a dungeon of this form signify? Sunyul stared at the dungeon resembling a massive tower with anxious eyes.

“We decided that our guild will raid that one immediately.”

“Immediately… our guild?”

“Yeah. Since it’s a certainty that you and I will be entering.”

Rather than putting in clumsy personnel and suffering casualties while raiding something whose contents were completely unknown, it meant they would use their strongest hand to clear it with absolute certainty.

Sunyul nodded his head. If that was the case, the responsibility was heavy.

“Don’t be too tense. Take a breather for now. The dungeon entry personnel haven’t all arrived yet.”

“Yes.”

Having said that, Muyoung began contacting someone somewhere again. In order not to disturb the busy-looking Muyoung, Sunyul stepped outside.

They were using a nearby hotel as a temporary headquarters; all the tourists had been evacuated, and only hunters, ability users, and a few government officials were standing nearby.

Though he was told to rest, he couldn’t put his mind at ease, so he walked around the area until he spotted Bada sitting on one side.

“Bada.”

Bada sprang up and approached Sunyul.

“Sunyul, are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

“What are you doing instead of resting? You have to enter the dungeon later too, so go rest up quickly.”

“Mmh, I should rest.”

Bada looked at Sunyul with a worried face. Sunyul felt that he shouldn’t delay any longer and had to give Bada the commissioned item he had received today.

Sunyul pulled out a B-rank sword from his inventory. It was one of the things he had commissioned Haemin for when he went to the Melior Guild last time.

“This is a present.”

Bada’s eyes widened. His trembling lips barely parted, and without even drawing a breath, he stared at the sword held in Sunyul’s hand.

“…This is.”

“You were sad because you said you lost your sword. I told him to make a new one so you could use this instead of being sad.”

“….”

“You’re not a government official anymore, so don’t worry about money. And just in case you lose your memories again, I even had an engraving carved on it saying it’s an incredibly important sword, so you won’t use it carelessly.”

Sunyul spoke lightheartedly on purpose because Bada looked too choked up. Seeing him like this, he felt a pang of regret, thinking he should have given him something better instead of a B-rank. Though he had intentionally made it the same rank.

Bada accepted the sword with a trembling hand and gripped it tightly. The cold metal was instantly warmed by his hot body temperature. His entire body felt flushed.

If he followed his urges, he wanted to hug Sunyul tightly, but Bada firmly suppressed his desire.

“…Thank you. I’ll cherish it for the rest of my life.”

“If it gets dangerous, you can use it up again. Next time, I’ll give you an S-rank.”

“I won’t use it up.”

Bada smiled faintly. Thinking to himself that though his love would probably never be fulfilled, he would absolutely never regret it because moments like this existed…

“I’ll use it well starting from the next dungeon, not this one.”

Bada spoke playfully on purpose. Sunyul nodded his head.

“Mmh. Because this dungeon is an S-rank.”

“They call it an S-rank, but there are a lot of predictions that it will actually be an S+ rank, so we have to prepare properly. The Bureau of Ability Users deployed the personnel properly too.”

“Who all is entering?”

“For now, the initial entry squad is you, that Guild Leader bastard, Go Yoonjae, Yoon Saebyeok, me, and Song Jihyun, in that order…”

“…Ah, really?”

Up to the sixth person, it was a full mobilization of people he knew. Even among the names listed after that, quite a few familiar people were mixed in. More than that, he hadn’t imagined that even Constellations would be included. Furthermore, for a Constellation to be 4th in sequence….

“Is Saebyeok-hyung fourth because he’s a healer?”

“That’s right. If it turns out to be a 4-man dungeon and there’s no healer, there’s no answer.”

“True….”

“They brought up to 48 reserve personnel from Seoul. We prepared up to 60 people, and for the rest, we received hunter support from the Gangwon-do side.”

“It’s a large-scale operation.”

“We won’t know what kind of scale it is until we actually enter, so we don’t know yet.”

The only thing they could know before entering was the rank of the dungeon. Because only after entering could they confirm what the maximum number of entrants for this dungeon was.

It wasn’t good for the maximum number of entrants to be too small, nor too large. A moderate amount was always best. However, for some reason, a ominous premonition that it might be extreme this time flashed through his mind.