The Way of Life for a Terminal S-Class Hunter - C58
$58
As I caressed the photo, I was seized by the illusion that I could enter into it. Not wanting to get too caught up in sentiment, I quickly flipped the photo over. Underneath were a Polaroid album with my parents and items I had received as birthday gifts. These were my treasures.
I had hidden them because looking at them made me miss them. Even longing for them felt like a sin.
I couldn’t bring myself to throw them away, but I also didn’t have the courage to look at them often, so I hid them right after joining Ihwa and completely forgot about them.
How could I have forgotten about this?
I put the box back in the drawer. This time, I planned to remember and take it with me when I left.
***
When I came down to the dormitory’s dedicated collection area with items to throw away, there was someone waiting for me.
“Welcome.”
Halo greeted me naturally, as if we had arranged to meet here. I wasn’t even surprised, having gotten used to this after experiencing it a few times.
“Were you waiting?”
“Yes.”
I glanced at Halo while stacking books to throw away and putting clothes in the clothing collection bin.
“Sometimes I get the illusion that Halo knows everything that’s going to happen in the future. But that’s surely not the case.”
You said it yourself, didn’t you? Yet when you suddenly appeared at places I was about to go, I couldn’t help but have such suspicions. Halo’s smile deepened as he helped me organize.
“That’s right. Even I can’t know everything about the future, and I don’t plan and act on everything.”
Halo appropriately separated the box in his hand and then tapped it with his toes. This repetitive action was quite different from his usual relaxed and confident demeanor. Yes, to be precise, it seemed like he was hesitating about something.
“What do you think about prophecies or oracles that appear in myths?”
“Like in Greek and Roman mythology? That kind of thing?”
“Yes.”
Halo was staring at the Iliad wedged between the books I had thrown away. He might have asked the question after being reminded by that, but given that he was a prophet, it also sounded quite meaningful.
“I think I thought it was a bit unfair. I wondered if actions taken because of hearing an oracle might actually lead to worse results.”
In my childish mind, I wanted to tell the characters in the books not to believe in oracles. Only now do I realize that the message was ‘what’s meant to happen will happen,’ and I’ve let my life flow that way too. But from a child’s perspective, that’s how I felt.
“Actually, I sometimes have things like that too. Things that make me think it’s unfair that I can see the future. You might not believe it, but there are things that don’t change no matter how much a prophet struggles. We’ve had this conversation before, haven’t we?”
“That sounds quite painful.”
It was painful to just have to watch things that are hard to bear. I gently patted Halo’s shoulder.
“That’s why I divide things. Into things I can change and things I can’t. I’ve decided not to be greedy about the latter. Once I did that, I felt a bit more at ease.”
Even Halo, whom I thought was always bright, had his own burdens. Well, the brighter someone appears, the deeper their darkness tends to be.
“You don’t need to shoulder everything. You can’t either.”
“But I find myself wanting things even when I know I can’t change them.”
At some point, the smile disappeared from Halo’s face.
“Take these.”
It was a compass and a pill.
“I hesitated until the end whether I should give these to you, but what’s meant to happen will happen.”
Leaving only those words, Halo abruptly left. I didn’t even have time to ask for a detailed explanation.
***
The day of the raid we had long prepared for arrived. While organizing my inventory before the battle, my hand suddenly stopped. Even though Halo hadn’t told me to, I had brought the compass and the pill. I pressed the [View Details] button to open the item description.
[Optimal Compass]
S-grade item
An item that responds to the owner’s wish. It guides you to a place where you can fulfill your wish.
* However, the more specific the wish, the better.
* It’s impossible to guide to non-existent spaces.
It was an abstract item. As an S-grade item, its performance would surely be guaranteed, but would there come a day when I, with not many days left to live, would use this item?
This time, I pressed on the pill right next to it.
[Ice Ring]
A-grade item
It has ice-based toxicity. If you eat it and don’t detoxify, your body will slowly start freezing after an hour, and after a day, you’ll get ‘cold sickness’.
* However, for thirty minutes after ingestion, your resistance to fire increases by two grades.
* It upgrades ice-attribute skills for thirty minutes.
It was an item related to fire, which I had never used before. Occasionally, hunters who lacked immunity to heat when entering fire-related dungeons, or hunters with developed ice-attribute skills like Seo-heon, used it as a doping agent. Of course, with an antidote prepared.
Since they were both items given by Halo, they must have some meaning. That’s why I brought them without forgetting, even though they were unnecessary items.
“If you’ve finished preparing, we’ll start the entry countdown.”
Seo-heon, perfectly dressed in battle gear, warned everyone. Finally, Team A consisted of main dealer Seo-heon, tanker Lee-han, and supporter Park Gangui. Team B was composed of me as the main dealer, Lee Seokju as the sub-dealer, and Byun Gyeongju and Kim Juhee as supporters. Lee Hye and Halo were in charge of special support and healing at the very back.
In the case of high-grade dungeon boss monsters, basically all hunters participating in the raid take part in the battle, but to catch the timing for maintenance, we had to engage in combat divided into two or more teams. Even during exploration, dividing into multiple teams was better for dealing with unexpected situations.
While closing the open inventory window, I checked if the team members had also finished preparing.
“All clear.”
“Then we’ll enter.”
The dungeon gate opened. Cameras, including drones, flashed incessantly to cover the first S-grade dungeon raid. We headed into the darkness, leaving those flashes behind.
“Ugh, isn’t this lava?”
That was what Juhee said as she took her first step into the dungeon. As she said, red liquid flowed between the stones on the floor. Even with at least A-grade equipment from head to toe, we couldn’t completely block the heat.
It’s becoming an established fact that Hetchling is a salamander.
From the terrain itself, it was already advertising that the boss monster was of fire attribute.
“Without equipment, ordinary people wouldn’t even be able to walk.”
Lee Hye, who had the sturdiest equipment due to her weak combat ability as a healer, was shocked. As an excellent healer, she must have been to many sites, but this seemed to be her first experience with a place like this.
“Even decent hunters would run away immediately without proper equipment.”
With each step, a sizzling sound echoed inside the dungeon. It was the sound of soles melting and corroding.
“I’ll increase the pace. We’ll encounter monsters in about ten minutes.”
“Of course, fire attribute monsters will appear, so make sure to prepare weapons with fire resistance.”
As a hunter who uses fire, I had a tolerance for heat, so the heat wasn’t that uncomfortable for me. And as they say, extremes meet, so Seo-heon, who uses ice-attribute abilities, was also strong against heat. Being able to control cold allows for neutralizing heat. Even now, Seo-heon was spreading cold air overall to make the movement more comfortable for the struggling team members.
“If the dungeon’s influence is this strong, we need to be prepared.”
Lee-han, who had been struggling with the heat until just now, opened his mouth as if he felt he could survive.
“This is why it’s not just any S-grade dungeon.”
It was already unusual for an S-grade dungeon to appear in the small land of Korea, but if we became the first hunters to clear it, our value would rise considerably.
It’s more than enough for my last career.
It’s true that I had experienced S-grade dungeons abroad, but usually, those countries had more dungeon raid veterans than Korea. The veterans I met might not have been the strongest as hunters, but they were said to be almost unparalleled in dungeon raiding. There, I was mostly treated as a high-performance part. Thanks to that, I was placed in the right positions and just had to do my job, which made things easier.
On the other hand, Korea had many strong hunters, but fewer hunters specialized in dungeon raiding compared to foreign countries. That’s why this raid had even greater significance.
“As we expected, we’ll soon reach an area where monsters appear. Please prepare one automatic defense item each from your inventory. If an unexpected situation occurs, you should use it immediately.”
The color of the lava was deepening to the point of becoming dark red. If it weren’t for Seo-heon’s skill, the other guild members would have had to fight the heat before the monsters. The hazy smoke was also increasing, which, as Seo-heon said, was a sign that monsters would soon appear.
Screech!
The first to react was our hearing. We could hear animal cries and the sound of wings flapping from afar.
“Flying type monsters.”
“They’re closer to pterosaur-type monsters.”
Seo-heon added an explanation to my words. Although he had participated in far fewer battles than me, his understanding was faster than anyone else’s. To be able to guess the identity of monsters just from the sound of wings in the distance. I secretly swallowed my admiration.
“They’ll arrive in thirteen seconds. I’ll count down. A group of about ten monsters will breathe fire with their wing flaps.”
Halo, standing at the very back, warned.
Screech!
As the cry became painfully clear, each team member took a full battle stance. What appeared simultaneously as the countdown reached zero was a monster I had never seen before. At a glance, it was close to a pterosaur-type monster, but it had an extra wing or its body was grotesquely twisted, giving it the appearance of a failed alchemy experiment.