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Chapter 18: In every five-man band, there will be one dead weight (3)

The first one to rise was Park Hyaeyoung.

After that, I could hear Jung Hayan tossing and turning.

As I was deliberating on when to get up, I felt a touch on my shoulder.

“Hyung-nim.”

‘Park Deokgu, nice.’

His timing wasn’t bad.

Perhaps because I wasn’t able to sleep well, I suddenly felt a wave of tiredness wash over me. Even so, I squinted my eyes open and sat up.

“Is it time already?”

“We’re planning to get going a little bit earlier today. We’ve decided to venture a little further out for hunting before returning to the shelter.”

“That’s fine.”

I deliberately didn’t let myself turn away from Jung Hayan. I knew it would be more awkward to avoid her.

When I glanced at her I could see that she was smiling brightly in my direction.

She seemed so different from the day before.

I couldn’t believe they were the same person. It was like she was another person.

‘Which one is real?’

I didn’t know if her current expression was genuine, or if what I’d seen last night was her true self.

For now, I thought it was best to cool off, so right after shooting her a small smile, I began to compose myself.

‘I’m tired.’

Since I couldn’t sleep well at night, my mind was blank.

When I went outside, Kim Hyunsung looked in my direction and began to speak.

“You look tired.”

“Just a bit, I’ll be fine.”

“It would be good for us to go further out today. Would that be all right?”

“I don’t believe it’s going to be a problem. Currently, there doesn’t seem to be many creatures nearby. I’m a little bit worried about the people staying at the shelter, but I don’t think it’s likely for anything to happen to them in the meantime. However, if we think there will be too many for them to handle…”

“Yes. Of course, we’ll make sure to head back right away.”

That was a reasonable judgement call.

“By the way, which way…”

“I scoped out the left path last night, and it wasn’t any different.”

Not only did he take the watch twice, he even searched ahead.

“Thank you for your hard work.”

If there are workers who are as diligent as this, someone like me gets to have a good time.

I thought that it was possible for there to be something on the right pathway, but it was still too early to tell.

“Hyaeyoung-ssi and Hayan-ssi…,”

“I’m all set too.”

“In terms of positions, if we find monsters like yesterday, then Hayan-ssi will come forward to replace Hyaeyoung-ssi instead. All right, let’s get going.”

“Yes.”

It seemed like the march ahead would be a tiring one.

What worried me the most was Jung Hayan’s presence.

I had no idea what was going on, but the behaviour Jung Hayan had demonstrated recently was abnormal.

It was so out of the ordinary that anyone would notice.

Her appearance was at odds with my impression of her.

My top priority was to determine the root cause of it. I had an inkling of the cause, but I couldn’t help but feel a bit perplexed.

‘Jealousy?’

The problem with this idea was that Jung Hayan and I had barely spent enough time together for me to jump to that conclusion.

The strength of relationships weren’t always proportional to the time spent together, but it was undeniable that that was still an important factor.

Of course, the situation we both found ourselves in was somewhat special.

This place wasn’t some café or restaurant.

In a cheap B-list movie, for instance, a man and a woman facing a crisis would develop feelings that seemed like love over a short period of time.

Perhaps her feelings were the same.

Jung Hayan’s past came to mind.

Looking back at her personal history, it was possible to form some reasonable deductions.

Her parents were gone, and she lost contact with her sisters a long time ago.

Given that she had been abandoned by her family, I understood why she wanted to lean on me a little more.

She wouldn’t have grown up in a kind environment.

‘It’s a simple deduction.’

However, for some reason, I had become a lifeline for her to clutch onto.

I would have been a kind person she could always trust and rely upon.

Perhaps those feelings had evolved from mere emotion to obsession.

Originally, what I had also been aiming for was to take on the role of her confidante.

It was easier to draw in a person with cracks in their heart.

‘Shall we test it out?’

It was a classic, cliché approach, but it was worth a try.

While walking side by side next to Park Hyaeyoung, I slowly opened my mouth and pulled her shoulder slightly.

“Careful.”

“Ah… Yes.”

She looked a little nervous.

It looked like she thought I had prevented her from almost tripping over a rock.

She seemed to be trying to thank me for it, but my goal wasn’t her reaction.

I glanced at Jung Hayan from the corner of my eyes.

It was only natural to see that she was staring at Park Hyaeyoung.

Kim Hyunsung and Park Deokgu didn’t seem to notice, but perhaps because of the effect of my attribute, I could see it clearly.

Jung Hayan’s eyes were filled with some kind of indescribable emotion.

‘I can use this.’

Her animosity wasn’t directed at me.

I thought it might be a bit too excessive to call it ordinary jealousy, but if you considered Jung Hayan’s sincerity, it was still within a tolerable range.

If I gave her carrots and sticks in moderation, Jung Hayan would be a faithful family member who would throw herself away for my sake.

Numerous thoughts filled my head as we walked. Before I knew it, we had covered quite a fair distance.

“I think there are some nearby. From here on in, we need to keep our guard up.”

“Ahem. Alright, Hyung-ssi.”

Perhaps from this point, everything in this area had already been seen by Kim Hyunsung once before.

It certainly smelled different from before.

It felt like the strange stench emanating from those creatures was everywhere.

What stood out more than that, however, was the faint trace of mana I could sense in the distance.

I didn’t know what type it was, but I could definitely feel something different about it.

Perhaps this was what Kim Hyunsung was after.

“I think I sense something.”

“What are you talking about? Hyung-nim. Do you see them?”

“I can feel a faint source of mana ahead of us. I’m not sure what it is… Anyway…”

“It’s suffocating to have no magic. Hyung-ssi, can you feel it?”

“I’m not sure, but since Kiyoung-ssi is a wizard, he would be more adept at sensing differences than us. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to check it out for now. There may be some hints on clearing this place.”

Kim Hyunsung certainly lacked the talent for acting.

The faint mana ahead of us seemed to be related to clearing this dungeon.

“Well, we’re heading in that direction anyway, but there’s no harm in being more cautious, so I’ll take the lead.”

“Be careful.”

There was no need for caution.

If Kim Hyunsung had sensed that there was something wrong with this place, we wouldn’t still be here.

As I carefully stepped forward, I could see at a glance what the source of the mana was.

‘Stairs.’

“Those stairs lead down.”

They were literally just stairs that went down to a lower level. It was only then that I could see that this dungeon had multiple levels.

Looking at Kim Hyunsung nodding, he seemed to believe that his contrived setup was convincing.

As ridiculous as it was, it didn’t seem like a bad idea to play along.

“It’s a common set-up, but does this mean that the further down you go, the more difficult it gets? I think that there might be some connection to clearing the dungeon here.”

“Um, do you think so? Hyung-nim.”

“I’m still unsure, but we haven’t found any other clues so far at this level, where there’s the starting point. Dumping us in this vast place only for us to deal with monsters when they told us to clear the dungeon seems unreasonable. It’s highly likely that going down from here is only the beginning. I don’t know what will happen, but at the very least there may be more clues than what we currently have.”

Kim Hyunsung listened to me and nodded when he heard my words.

“I feel the same way.”

‘Just.’

“It’s too much for us right now, so let’s start with keeping note of this place for now and go down another time. We didn’t come here to clear the dungeon today. We might find something that could help us down there. It’s also possible that there are different monster species below.”

“I’d hate for even more irritating punks to come out.”

Me too.

Regardless, Kim Hyunsung had successfully alerted us to the existence of the underground entrance without acting unnatural.

For someone like him, this might feel like a big achievement.

However, the growth of Jung Hayan and Park Hyaeyoung was more urgent. Only when we had readied a number of people able to fight, could we go down.

“The road.”

“I’ve roughly got it down in my mind.”

“Then, from now on, will we be scouting for monsters around here?”

“I think we’d better do that. Let’s start a little way from this point.”

“Okay, Hyung-ssi.”

Like yesterday, we looked for those creatures with our eyes blazing, and were able to find some in our immediate vicinity.

Perhaps these monsters had originated from here and had spread out as they got further away.

There were three monsters close by.

I glanced at Kim Hyunsung and saw him nodding.

“If Deokgu-ssi takes on two of those guys, Kiyoung-ssi will quickly take care of one of them and I’ll handle the other. We’ll use the last one as a training dummy. Hyaeyoung-ssi and Hayan-ssi can take a similar position to Kiyoung-ssi.”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

Park Deokgu and I clenched our teeth and sprung forward.

Park Deokgu took the lead to see if he could draw their aggro.

I also ran ahead, leaving behind Park Hyaeyoung and Jung Hayan who both looked nervous.

I watched from behind as Park Deokgu pushed one back with his shield and fended the other off with his leather-covered arm.

Kim Hyunsung looked somewhat relaxed as he ran towards one of them and succeeded in cutting off its arm.

‘He’s extremely fast.’

I’d expected him to be a little faster because of his high agility, but his speed was beyond my imagination.

At the same time, I applied a bit of mana to the end of my spear and threw it at the one Park Deokgu was holding on to.

Puuk! Blood gushed out as the sound resounded, but I couldn’t afford to relax just yet.

‘It’s not dead yet.’

When I went to stab it with my spear again, Park Hyaeyoung was next to me, holding onto her spear as though she wanted to do something.

‘Not bad.’

For now, the most important thing was that she had the will to act.

There was no need to look over at Kim Hyunsung.

Perhaps he would try to take it down with a moderate amount of strength so that he wouldn’t appear strange.

That just left the one we would be using as a training dummy.

Even before Park Deokgu had moved to capture it, Park Hyaeyoung, who seemed excited, began to extend her spear.

‘Dumbass.’

She was obviously stupid.

Only

As you’d expect, the monster was outside of Park Deokgu’s range when the spear was deflected.

“Ack! I-I’m sorry…”

“Gah.”

In every five-man band, there will be one dead weight.

“Deokgu-yah.”

This saying I’d heard somewhere had some truth to it.

“Gyaaaaaaaaaaak!!”

‘Dumb bitch!’