Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Kang Hoon had lost consciousness, and Kwon Do-geun was standing with barely his eyes open.

Kang Ji-hyun steadied herself against the floor as she gathered up her whip with trembling hands.

“Haa… haa… Hey, Go Gyeol… I really thought I was going to die….”

Lee Seong-ha muttered as he spat out saliva that tasted of blood.

But Go Gyeol walked indifferently out from among the collapsed golem’s remains and checked the time.

“You’re 2 minutes slower than expected. Stamina really is the problem.”

“You, you crazy bastard, seriously….”

The moment Lee Seong-ha was about to curse, Go Gyeol picked up an item that had popped out from the wreckage.

“At least your luck is good. For a mid-boss drop item, something fairly useful came out.”

Go Gyeol smiled coldly at his companions sprawled across the floor.

“Now, rest for 10 minutes. Loosen your muscles in the meantime. The boss monster will be three times harder than this.”

At those words, screams full of despair rang out. Go Gyeol listened to that sound as if it were sweet music and added an item called “cardio hell” to the next training schedule.

“Auuugh…. My arm really feels like it’s going to fall off.”

Lee Seong-ha threw the dented steel pipe in his hand onto the floor. It was the thing he had picked up during the battle and used as a blunt weapon. Since he had been unable to use mana and had beaten targets down by moving his arm muscles raw, his palms were already a mess from burst blisters.

Kang Ji-hyun also leaned against the wall, gasping roughly. The shoulder she had used to swing the whip was twitching faintly.

“Hey, Go Gyeol.”

Lee Seong-ha sank to the floor and glared at Go Gyeol.

“Seriously, we can’t use mana until the end of the Dungeon? I almost got crushed to death by that bastard earlier.”

“I told you. The monsters here grow stronger in proportion to pure mana concentration. The moment we emit mana, even the boss at the end will go berserk and come running.”

At Go Gyeol’s cold answer, Lee Seong-ha thumped his chest as if wronged.

“No, fine, I’ll give you Kang Ji-hyun a hundred times over! She’s from the ‘Witch’ line, so she’s basically a lump of mana itself. But why can’t I use my ‘gravity’? Gravity is a physical law that exists throughout all things in the universe, isn’t it? Doesn’t that have nothing to do with mana?!”

At Lee Seong-ha’s protest, Go Gyeol turned his head indifferently and looked at him.

“It has a lot to do with it.”

“What? How?”

Go Gyeol picked up one mannequin finger rolling on the floor.

“Hunter Skills are broadly divided into two types. ‘Phenomenon manifestation’ and ‘law interference.’ Nature-type Skills like fire or water amplify elements that already exist, but your gravity is different. Do you think gravity is generated inside your body?”

“Well… it’s my Skill, so isn’t that how it works?”

“Wrong. You consume mana to twist the surrounding ‘space.’ You distort space to artificially create a gravity value. In other words, the engine of your gravity Skill is 100% mana. Just like exhaust comes out when an engine runs, the moment you use gravity, mana waves spread throughout this entire Dungeon.”

Lee Seong-ha’s mouth fell open.

“Then… if it isn’t nature-type, it all works through mana operation?”

“Exactly. The more a Skill interferes with concepts or laws, the more overwhelmingly high its mana dependency is. If Kang Ji-hyun’s light arrow is a bullet, your gravity is like the electric energy running the gun. The moment electricity flows, the tracking device catches it.”

At Go Gyeol’s clear explanation, Lee Seong-ha lost his words and picked up the dented pipe again. Listening from the side, Kang Ji-hyun smiled faintly and added a word.

“So in the end, without mana, you’re a corpse too. Go pick out a sturdier pipe, Mr. Gravity Caster.”

“Ah, seriously…. In my next life, I’m Awakening with something like fire or water too. What the hell is this? I have a Skill right there, but I have to move my body. Wait. Hey, then what about that brat? Curses are definitely mana-type too. He’s been openly spewing curses this whole time, so why aren’t the monsters going berserk?”

At Lee Seong-ha’s question, Kang Hoon also seemed curious and looked at Go Gyeol with his swollen eyes wide open. Go Gyeol swept an indifferent gaze over the black haze wavering at Kang Hoon’s feet and opened his mouth.

“Curses are different. To be precise, their main ingredient isn’t mana.”

“What does that mean? How does a Skill work without mana? He’s an Awakened too.”

When Lee Seong-ha narrowed his eyes as if he did not understand, Go Gyeol added in a languid yet cold voice.

“The power of the Curse line is ‘human emotion.’ But Kang Hoon isn’t using his own personal emotions.”

Go Gyeol paused briefly and looked directly into Kang Hoon’s eyes.

“A Curse Hunter is like an antenna. Even at this very moment, billions of people around the world are pouring out vast negative emotions such as hatred, grief, obsession, and jealousy. He inserts a straw into that enormous sea and draws from it.”

“What? The emotions of the entire world’s population? That’s possible?”

Lee Seong-ha shouted in shock. Kang Hoon, listening beside him, also turned pale.

“It’s possible, which is why he uses it. Mana has a clear limit depending on an individual’s capacity, but as long as humanity is alive, negative emotion is like a spring that never dries. Curse Skills borrow energy from that enormous ‘emotional trash bin.’ That’s also why mana detectors can’t catch curses. How would you give form to emotion?”

“My god… Then he gets stronger the more miserable the world is? That’s a complete cheat key.”

When Lee Seong-ha clicked his tongue, Go Gyeol snapped coldly.

“Cheat key, my ass. Imagine the filthy emotions of billions of people passing through your body as a channel. Do you think you could stay sane? Curse Hunters eventually go mad or become monsters not because they lack mana. It’s because their souls become polluted while taking in the ugliness of the entire world in real time through their whole bodies.”

At those words, Kang Hoon looked down at his hands. Only now did he understand the unpleasant chill he felt whenever he used curses, and the reason the screams of tens of thousands of people who were not him rang in his ears.

The fact that his power was not simply “his own” made him feel a heavy sense of responsibility and fear at the same time.

“Hey, brat. You… really have it rough. I’ll just swing a steel pipe.”

Lee Seong-ha tapped Kang Hoon’s shoulder with a look of sympathy. Instead of answering, Kang Hoon bit his lip firmly.

“Enough chatter. The Food Hall is next.”

No sooner had Go Gyeol spoken than the Food Hall shutter, which had been firmly shut, rolled upward with a grotesque sound.

RATTLE, CRAAASH—!

At last, the shutter of the “Food Hall” in the deepest part of Arcadia Shopping Mall rolled fully upward.

Contrary to the expectation that it would be full of darkness, the place shone chaotically with the strange phosphorescence emitted by rotting ingredients past their expiration dates and the flickering of fluorescent lights.

“So this is finally the last one.”

Lee Seong-ha adjusted his grip on the dented steel pipe and stepped forward.

Thousands of canned goods and burst flour sacks were rolling across the floor. Every step made a squelching sound, and a stench that stabbed the nose vibrated through the air.

That was when the owners of the “Food Hall” revealed themselves from behind the display shelves.

CREEAK, CREEAK!

They were small metal life-forms made from canned goods grotesquely combined, and small box monsters with cart wheels that rolled quickly toward them.

The party members tensed and gripped their weapons tightly, but the result ended so quickly it felt empty.

CLANG—! CRUNCH—! WHOOSH—!

Every time Lee Seong-ha’s pipe swung, heaps of cans turned into scrap metal, and every time Kang Ji-hyun’s whip cut through the air, boxes scattered into pieces.

When Kang Hoon lightly sprinkled <Weakening> from behind, the monsters could not even keep their balance and rolled across the floor.

And….

The battle ended in less than 5 minutes.

“……What? That’s it?”

Lee Seong-ha looked around as if dumbfounded. There was nothing moving on the floor anymore. Compared to the Cart Golem that had been the mid-boss earlier, this was not even snack-level.

“They said this was the final boss of Arcadia Shopping Mall. Why is its name value like this?”

Kang Ji-hyun also seemed baffled and grumbled as she shook foreign matter from her whip. Kang Hoon, his tension released, sank to the floor and let out a sigh of relief.

“Thank god…. We can leave now, right?”

But only Go Gyeol did not smile. In the middle of the empty Food Hall store, he was staring at the massive stainless steel door that filled one side of the wall.

“As if.”

At Go Gyeol’s low voice, the party members’ gazes focused on him.

“Did you forget why this Dungeon is named ‘Arcadia’? Behind visible splendor, the ugliest true form is always hidden.”

Go Gyeol strode forward and pointed at the heavy iron door attached to the wall.

Above the door, red letters read [Fresh Storage]. Through the crack in the door, below-freezing cold and a terrible smell of blood were flowing out.

“You can think of everything before this as merely an ‘expiration date check.’”

“Hey, hey…. Don’t tell me the boss is in there?”

Lee Seong-ha asked, looking sick of it. Instead of answering, Go Gyeol grabbed the heavy lever and pulled it hard.

RUMBLE—!

What poured out as the heavy iron door opened was not simple cold.

It was terrible resentment, as if thousands of corpses were exhaling at the same time, and clear killing intent that meant to freeze all life solid. Hundreds of meat hooks hanging from the ceiling swayed with CREEAK, CREEAK sounds, following the flow of wind that had vanished without a trace.

“……What the hell is that?”

Kang Hoon backed away, his teeth chattering. The things hanging on the hooks were no longer meat. The remains of the shopping mall, broken mannequins, and unidentified black organic matter were layered upon one another, forming a gigantic “tower.”

And at the top of that tower sat the master of this space, the “Butcher.”