VSP 136

Dark thoughts continued to plague him, but Jeong Siwoo snapped back to reality the moment he thought of Ryu Sehyun.

As if he’d been under some terrible curse, indulging in wicked thoughts before belatedly coming to his senses, his face instantly turned deathly pale.

Jeong Siwoo, are you crazy? Were you really this much of a piece of trash?

He hated Sejun. He hated him intensely. He didn’t deny that. 

Jeong Siwoo still hated Sejun. He knew Sejun had saved him, but he still hated him.

But no matter what, he wasn’t a bad person who could just leave someone he hated to die.

Moreover, the mere thought of abandoning someone who had been injured saving him sent a chill down his spine.

Such a choice would haunt him with guilt for the rest of his life. Jeong Siwoo gritted his teeth. He had to hurry.

It was just as Jeong Siwoo frantically pushed himself halfway through the exit.

Boom! A deafening roar, like an earthquake, erupted behind him, accompanied by a blinding flash of blue light.

“What the hell?”

Just before escaping the exit, he looked back. A brilliant blue light illuminated the ruined city.

Its intensity was so extraordinary that Jeong Siwoo hesitated. Should he go out now and request help as quickly as possible? Or should he go back to check what was happening? What if he went to investigate and it turned out to be nothing?

But the hesitation didn’t last long. Whatever that phenomenon was, there wasn’t much he could do by going back. The answer was to proceed as planned and request rescue.

Besides, an inexplicable anxiety that he might vanish without a trace if swept up in it pushed Jeong Siwoo out of the dungeon.

“Huh? Hunter Jeong Siwoo?”

Jeong Siwoo blinked blankly, unable to comprehend what he’d just experienced or what he’d last seen. Outside, the Association staff who’d been waiting leisurely turned pale as death at the sight of him emerging alone.

Jeong Siwoo gasped for breath. Now was not the time to dwell on the strange blue light he’d seen at the end. Even without that, the dungeon had been bizarre enough.

“We need support.”

“Pardon?”

The staff momentarily failed to grasp the situation and repeated the question. By common sense, two S-rank hunters entering an A-rank dungeon wouldn’t request support.

Even if they were the lowest-ranked S-ranks, even if it was a combination of a hunter who couldn’t fight properly and a mental type hunter…

“The inside doesn’t feel like an A-rank dungeon. It feels like an S-rank.”

He’d already wasted time needlessly hesitating, and now the staff weren’t even thinking about responding, just staring blankly and asking questions. Frustrated, Jeong Siwoo pounded his chest.

“Sejun’s leg is broken, and he’s isolated inside. We need backup now!”

“Ah, yes! Understood!”

Only then did the staff start scrambling. They never imagined an emergency could arise with two S-rank hunters in an A-rank dungeon, so everyone panicked at first. But soon, like the veteran staff they were, they began handling things swiftly.

They ordered calls to be made to the nearest A-rank or higher hunters, and to have an ambulance stand by just in case. While the staff bustled about, one team leader-level employee, the person in charge on site, picked up their phone and dialed someone.

What the hell? What’s going on in an A-rank dungeon? The call connected quickly.

“President! It’s an emergency!”

He did not want to contact the Association President, who was away on personal business for the first time in ages, but he could not delay reporting just to be considerate.

Just as the team leader was explaining the situation to the other party, an employee rushed up to him urgently.

“Team Leader!”

“Why?”

The team leader turned his head, assuming there must be a good reason for interrupting a call. The employee, his face pale as a ghost, was pointing at the dungeon.

“The entrance…”

The team leader turned his head toward the dungeon entrance the employee was gesturing at, and his own face soon went blank.

“The entrance is blocked.”

It was exactly as the employee said.

The dungeon entrance, which usually only shimmered like a blue haze, had no door to speak of, and naturally, it had never been blocked before. Except when the dungeon was cleared and the entrance vanished entirely.

But now it was different. It was unclear when it had appeared, but crimson chains were now tightly wrapped around the blue haze.

Worse still were the characters floating above those crimson chains. The entrance being blocked and the chains themselves were unprecedented, but characters written on top of them? Even the team leader, who’d worked at the Association for five years and seen every kind of dungeon site, had never witnessed such a phenomenon.

The dungeon entrance before his eyes bore this inscription.

[This dungeon cannot be accessed in this world.]

The letters, twisted as an error code, flickered irregularly like a malfunctioning neon sign.

“What the hell is that?”

The team leader mumbled without realizing it.

-The entrance is blocked? What do you mean?

His superior asked back over the phone, but he couldn’t find the words to respond.

The team leader stood with his mouth agape, staring at the scene before finally managing to speak.

“Well…”

Even as he opened his mouth to report, the team leader had no idea how to describe it. So he decided to report only the one confirmed fact for now.

“Hunter Sejun… seems to be trapped inside the dungeon…”

•••

“What should Sejun’s summoned beast be?”

It was a woman’s voice he’d heard somewhere before. Sejun flinched, he was barely holding onto his flickering consciousness.

“An animal would be nice… a tiger?”

Whether Sejun reacted or not, the woman’s mutterings continued.

As if she was pondering a very important problem, a “Ugh,” accompanied her words.

“Or, since he’s the protagonist, should I go big and make it a dragon?”

“Ah, I’m so torn, what should I do?”

“Hmm, yeah, let’s make it a dragon! Its name will be Ruya!”

“Ah, but is that too grand? Ah, I don’t know, I don’t know, just do it! He’s the protagonist!”

The name ‘Sejun’ appeared in the air. Perhaps because he was the protagonist, it shone brilliantly.

The woman, who had been muttering while pondering, soon began murmuring about another concern.

“There needs to be a crisis, and conflict too.”

“A dungeon stronger than its rank appears. Due to the influence of the ‘Final Dungeon’…”

“All sorts of strange phenomena should appear too. How about a dungeon that can’t be detected suddenly appearing in a department store crowded with civilians?”

“They thought it was just a normal A-rank dungeon, but it turns out to be S-rank or higher, and the dungeon monsters lock the door to prevent the hunters from escaping.”

“So that’s how the ‘protagonist’ faces a crisis.”

“Sounds good to me?”

Around that time, for some reason, the light flickering around Sejun’s name began to fade little by little.

“Ah, damn it. Even if they tell me to switch to a system window all of a sudden……”

“Aaargh, what do I do?”

“Should I ask if having two main protagonists is okay? …Ah… they’re really strict. They changed the genre on a whim too.”

“Ah, maybe it’s not because it’s BL, but that reason…?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know. If it were just that reason, they would’ve told me to change the ending.”

“Haa, then let’s change the protagonist to Dogyeong for now…”

“But then Sejun would just be… a villain or a supporting character. Isn’t a dragon too grand?”

“…Should I change it to a tiger?”

“Then let’s name him Hoya. It’s cute.”

The name written next to Sejun’s name, Ruya, changed to Hoya.

“What about Sejun’s specs? I kinda hate the idea of lowering his summoned beast stats.”

“But I also hate the idea of downgrading Sejun to A-rank or B-rank.”

“Hmm, then let’s just delete all the skills except the main ones.”

After a long moment of deliberation, she snapped her fingers. Finding the answer, she said brightly,

“Let’s lower his mana. Make it so he gasps after one summon. Since Hoya is fucking strong, the balance is perfect.”

“How much should we reduce the mana? Hmm…”

“The problem was giving him too much to begin with, so we should slash it here, right?”

“Even half seems like a lot. So let’s cut it down to roughly 1/10… But isn’t Hoya being too strong still a balance issue? Hmm. Maybe drastically increase the mana cost to summon Hoya.”

“Alright, perfect! It’s perfect!”

“The cute but utterly useless villain is complete!”

Now that the light had completely vanished, Sejun’s name remained only as a faint, shabby gray.

“Cute really is the way to go. Sejun’s pretty popular, huh?”

“Though he gets cursed at constantly in the story itself….”

Hmm, well, that can’t be helped. The muttering voice faded away, and shortly after, an incredibly joyful voice rang out.

“Yes! It’s finished! Finally finished! Yippee!”

“Ahh, but it’s a bit disappointing.”

“I couldn’t make them kiss even once….”

“…Hmph.”

Flash.

In that instant, the world, which had been tinged gray, regained its color. Sejun, who had been squinting like someone suddenly exposed to light after being in darkness, shielded his eyes with his hand as his previously blurry vision cleared.