Chapter 16

Chapter 16

“What?!”

“The true body of that swamp is a slime-type monster! If you pull it off the floor, it won’t be able to hold its form! Hurry!”

There was no time to hesitate. At Go Gyeol’s voice, filled with certainty, Lee Seong-ha instinctively manipulated gravity, seized Kang Ji-hyun around the waist, and shot into the air.

“Ugh!”

The black swamp clinging to Kang Ji-hyun’s ankles was dragged up with her. And in midair, it finally revealed its true form. A slime monster in a horrific shape, made of black tar tangled together with scraps of clothing and mannequin limbs, let out a grotesque scream.

Go Gyeol’s eyes flashed. Everything was moving according to his data.

“Now! The glowing mannequin head at the center of that lump is the core! Kang Ji-hyun, shoot the bow!”

Even in the chaos, Go Gyeol’s instructions were as clear as a lighthouse. He was no longer a mere management agency CEO. He was the only clear guide who saw through everything in this hellish Dungeon.

Pure mana swirled in Kang Ji-hyun’s hand and created dazzling particles of light. The light soon condensed into the form of a bow, drawing a beautiful curve. Her long, slender fingers slowly pulled back the bowstring of light, so thin it seemed about to snap.

TWANG—!

In the empty air where nothing had been, an arrow of light took shape on its own and burned fiercely.

The moment she released the bowstring, the arrow of light silently cut through space and flew toward the slime monster suspended in midair.

-BOOM, BOOM, BOOOOM!!

With thunderous explosions, a blinding flash covered the entire store. The mannequin head that had been the slime monster’s core vanished without a trace, and the filth that had made up its body poured down like rain.

Still floating in the air, her waist held in Lee Seong-ha’s arm, Kang Ji-hyun exhaled in satisfaction.

“Hoo…. Hey, put me down now.”

“What? Hey? Who are you calling hey right now….”

“Stop whining and put me down. You stink.”

“You really…!”

Lee Seong-ha flared up, but even as he grumbled, he obediently adjusted gravity and lowered her to the floor. After landing, Kang Ji-hyun calmly fixed her clothes as if nothing had happened. Watching her, Lee Seong-ha stuck out his tongue and muttered,

“Her power’s as damn nasty as her rotten personality.”

But unlike the two of them, who were soaked in the relief of victory, Go Gyeol’s gaze did not waver by even an inch. Instead, he guarded their surroundings even more sharply and said in a low voice,

“Don’t let your guard down. It’s not over yet.”

“What?”

The moment Lee Seong-ha asked back—

CREEEAK… CREEEEAK….

A spine-chilling sound, like rusted hinges turning, began to echo from every corner of the store.

“……!”

Everyone’s eyes turned toward the source of the sound.

There stood dozens of mannequins, motionless in perfect poses.

Crack. Crack, crack.

The mannequins’ joints began bending unnaturally, like those of living humans. Their artificial smiles remained drawn on their smooth plastic faces as their necks turned 180 degrees toward the group. Inside their empty eye sockets, eerie red light began to burn.

“Dear customers….”

From one mannequin’s mouth, a torn voice flowed out like a broken speaker.

“…it is… shopping… time.”

In the next moment, dozens of mannequins broke their own arms and legs into sharp weapons and began charging at terrifying speed.

“Fuck! What the hell is this now!”

Just as Lee Seong-ha spat out a curse and tried to spread a gravity field, Go Gyeol’s cold voice stopped him.

“Lee Seong-ha, focus on covering Kang Ji-hyun. Kang Ji-hyun. From now on, don’t use mana. Those things are the type that react to mana and grow stronger.”

His words were not mere speculation. It was an order filled with the certainty of someone who saw through everything. Go Gyeol had expected all of this.

He lightly tapped Kang Hoon on the shoulder as the boy stood behind them, not knowing what to do.

“Kang Hoon.”

“Y-yes?!”

“It’s your turn now.”

Go Gyeol jerked his chin toward the closest of the charging mannequins.

“Those bastards’ joints are their weak points. Use your ability to bind their movements, even if it’s only for a moment. You can do that, right?”

“T-those things? Me?”

Kang Hoon’s face went white. But Go Gyeol’s gaze did not allow any excuses.

“The Curse you have doesn’t simply harm opponents. It’s optimized for weakening and binding. Do what you learned in training. You have ‘Weakening,’ don’t you!”

“You said they get stronger from mana!”

“Curses and mana are different. They look like the same line, but they’re different.”

This was not a simple deployment into real combat. It was Go Gyeol’s calculated lesson to make Kang Hoon, who had hated his own ability, realize with his body the new possibilities of that power.

“If you don’t do it, we all die.”

At Go Gyeol’s final words, Kang Hoon gritted his teeth. He stretched his trembling hand forward and, for the first time in his life, began drawing up his cursed power to protect someone.

Go Gyeol’s final words were like a death sentence. Kang Hoon clenched his teeth. The presence of his companions behind him. He had lived hating himself, but he did not want to see them die before his eyes.

He stretched out his trembling hand.

He desperately recalled the sensation he had learned while rolling and rolling through training. Not hatred or anger, but pure focus.

“…<Weakening>.”

Along with the spell he murmured like a whisper, a damp black haze rose from Kang Hoon’s fingertips. Like living snakes, it crawled across the floor and instantly wrapped around the leading mannequins charging like mad.

CREEEAK—!

The effect was immediate. The mannequins’ fierce movements became dull and creaking, as though invisible shackles had been fastened around their bodies. From every joint came a dissonant noise, as if sand had been poured in instead of lubricant.

“An opening!”

Go Gyeol’s shout split the battlefield.

“Don’t use mana! Those things get stronger in response to pure mana! Break their joints physically!”

At that warning, Lee Seong-ha and Kang Ji-hyun, who had momentarily forgotten about the ban on mana use during the battle, instinctively suppressed their mana release. The red whip coiled around Kang Ji-hyun’s wrist came alive like a snake, wrapped around the neck of the nearest mannequin, and smashed it apart. Lee Seong-ha also swung the heavy iron pipe in his hand, which no one knew when he had picked up, and shattered a mannequin’s leg joint.

But Go Gyeol’s gaze was not on the battlefield. In the middle of the swirling combat, he looked toward the one person who alone had stopped moving.

Kwon Do-geun.

He was trembling in place like aspen leaves. A bloodless face, pupils dilated with fear. Unable to control the sphere of water he had summoned without realizing it, he simply stared at the hellscape before him and froze.

Go Gyeol strode toward him and blocked his view. When the horrific sight disappeared from his vision, Kwon Do-geun’s unfocused eyes finally turned toward Go Gyeol.

“Kwon Do-geun.”

At the cold voice, Kwon Do-geun’s shoulders flinched.

“Are you afraid?”

There was no answer. Go Gyeol looked down at him for a moment, then threw out a completely unexpected question.

“Think of this as a movie.”

“……What?”

“The protagonist is a Hunter like you, and this is a very cool climax scene where he smashes all those mannequins and saves his companions.”

Kwon Do-geun stared at Go Gyeol with a blank expression. In this hellish situation, he could not understand what on earth Go Gyeol was saying.

Go Gyeol grabbed his chin and forced him to look at the battlefield.

“But if the protagonist just trembles like you, would the audience pay money to watch that movie?”

It was neither comfort nor encouragement.

It was a brutally realistic question that twisted the essence of fear itself.

“But… I don’t know anything….”

This time, Go Gyeol lightly tapped Kwon Do-geun’s chest.

“Everything depends on how you do it. Didn’t you film a similar movie before?”

“Movies and reality are different!”

“No, they’re the same. You’re a Hunter, and you have power.”

“But I don’t know how to use that power….”

“Power does nothing but obey me. It’s a famous line from the first Hunter.”

【Power does nothing but obey me.】

(Power obeys only me.)

That arrogant sentence struck Kwon Do-geun’s mind hard.

In that instant, a forgotten memory flashed through Kwon Do-geun’s mind.

It was a scene from a certain fantasy film he had shot before becoming a Hunter.

Back then, though he knew there was nothing in the empty air, he had swung his hand while imagining the dazzling CG that would be added later.

The director had explained, “A stream of water bursts out here and binds the enemy,” and Kwon Do-geun had acted while believing in that imaginary image as though it were real.

“Right. This is acting. Those droplets are CG I have to control.”

The mana he had not been able to perceive finally began to take form through the frame called “image.” The energy that had wandered because he did not know how to use it began to follow the flow of familiar direction, as though he were memorizing an old script. Power was not something that watched its master’s mood. It was a tool that had to obey its master’s imagination.

Kwon Do-geun’s gaze changed into that of an actor. He no longer trembled. Instead, like he had done before a camera in the past, he stretched his hand toward the mannequin in the pose he was most confident in. The scattered droplets aligned along his fingertips.

“<Water Bind>!”

The water streams floating in the air instantly condensed, then stretched out as a fierce whip. Like a special effect promised in advance, it flew with precision and tightly wrapped around the mannequin’s ankles, fixing them to the floor.

“……!”

The mannequin, its vision blocked and its feet bound, hesitated for a moment. Kang Ji-hyun, the predator of the battlefield, had no reason to miss that brief opening.

WHOOSH—! CRUNCH—!

Kang Ji-hyun’s red whip flew in with a chilling sound of tearing air and shattered the mannequin’s head to pieces. Perfect timing, perfect linkage.

Kwon Do-geun stared blankly at the stream of water that had burst from his fingertips and let out a rough breath. It was the first moment he had realized he was a Hunter and used his power.

Watching that, Go Gyeol murmured with a satisfied smile.

“Now the party can finally start running.”