Chapter 70

Is that so? To me, it looks identical to what I saw in my previous life. “Let’s keep going for now,” Eui-rim suggested. “The anomaly could have affected the dungeon’s structure.”

It was Son Chaeyoon who shoved the hesitating Kim Si-hoon forward. Completely ignoring his grumbling about how insolent a B-rank was being, she pointed toward a shaft of light leaking from deeper down the corridor.

“My gut tells me that’s the first raid checkpoint,” Chaeyoon said.

“Eui-rim-ssi, keep the watch ready so you can activate it immediately,” Hae-gun said.

Startled by the warm breath brushing against his ear, Eui-rim looked up to find Seo Hae-gun leaning close, curving his eyes in a gentle crescent. Eui-rim scratched his earlobe and gave a silent nod.

His role in this raid was strictly focused on reconnaissance. Finding the possessed host monster—that is, severing the link to the Fragment—was the single most critical objective of this operation.

Not that he intended to loaf around doing nothing. Still, since no one knew what might unfold, his plan was to conserve as much mana as possible during the early stages of the dungeon.

“…Huh?” Kim Si-hoon froze dead in his tracks.

Kim Si-hoon, who had reached the destination ahead of the party, halted before the doorway. He dug his heels in with such desperate force that even the Divine Steed tethered to him stumbled, kicking empty air.

“Why’d you stop without warning—” Ahn Moonhyuk started, shoving past him.

The moment an impatient Ahn Moonhyuk shoved Kim Si-hoon aside, everyone, including Eui-rim, froze in place at the sight revealed beyond the doorway.

In the center of the room, illuminated by a pale shaft of light like a spotlight,

sprawled atop a colossal drawing of a single eye rendered in blood, lay a severed body with only its upper torso remaining.

“That’s a hunter from the Association rescue team,” Son Chaeyoon said, recognizing the corpse first.

When the others turned to look at her, Chaeyoon shrugged lightly and continued, “If my memory serves me right, I believe he was a C-rank… No idea how he ended up like that, though.”

“Was he killed by a monster?” Ahn Moonhyuk asked.

To Ahn Moonhyuk’s question, Seo Hae-gun shook his head. “Who knows. The cross-section is far too clean for that.” The words settled over the room like a pall.

Kim Si-hoon choked out a strangled gasp. Lost in thought, Seo Hae-gun had seized Kim Si-hoon by the scruff of his neck and dragged him inside.

“Ow, ow! It hurts! Ow! Fuck, I said it hurts!” Kim Si-hoon shrieked.

Kim Si-hoon thrashed with all his might, veins bulging along his neck. Spewing venomous curses and asking why he had to suffer such humiliation, he seemed consumed by sheer spite.

“Gah, that guy’s screeching is going to draw every wandering monster in the area,” Ahn Moonhyuk grumbled. “Guild Master, can’t we just muzzle him?”

Unable to bear the screeching any longer, Ahn Moonhyuk pulled a muzzle from Son Chaeyoon’s bag. He looked ready to gag Kim Si-hoon on the spot so he couldn’t let out even a single whimper.

Seo Hae-gun waved a hand to stop the growling Ahn Moonhyuk. Shoving the cowed Kim Si-hoon forward, Hae-gun said in an unenthusiastic drawl, “Guild Master Kim, would you go check it out? I’m simply too frightened.”

“Frightened, my ass…” Kim Si-hoon started to snap back on reflex, but choked down his words and fell silent. He seemed to have finally accepted that rebelling any further would only bring him more grief.

Waddling reluctantly toward the corpse, he made a wide circle around the drawing on the floor.

“It definitely doesn’t look like he was—” Kim Si-hoon cleared his throat. “—eaten by monsters, sir. And the bloodstains don’t seem to have come from the corpse either… sir.”

What a relief. At least I’m not the only one who can see that one-eyed drawing.

Then is that the ‘Sigil’ mentioned in the guide notice?

Eui-rim opened the guide notice that had been newly updated the moment they stepped into the dungeon. He wanted to recheck the information that had popped up like an alert right as they passed through the Isolation Ward’s entrance.

The revised guide was far more succinct than before. While devoid of specific details, the behavioral directive itself was crystal clear, which spared him from overthinking.

All they had to do was eliminate everything suspected of being a Sigil.

“Ah, seriously, this feels so damn eerie,” Ahn Moonhyuk grumbled in an anxious tone. “What if we can’t rescue anyone and just end up finding corpses of Association personnel? A human body isn’t a radish, but it’s sliced clean like it was diced for soup.”

In Utopia, Moonhyuk had maintained a fairly boisterous demeanor, but it seemed he was vulnerable to this brand of horror. The frightened look on his face clashed comically with his massive frame. No matter how resistant he was to debuffs and mental-type skills, fear was fear.

“Is there any chance it’s not a real corpse?” Son Chaeyoon asked, examining the body closely. “I mean, by all accounts it’s a face I recognize, but maybe they threw a replica torso to the zombie swarm and bolted.”

Chaeyoon kept raising the possibility of the torso being a mannequin, citing that no blood flowed from the cross-section, nor were there any bones or internal organs visible.

“That could be possible,” Hae-gun murmured.

Seo Hae-gun tilted his head as he inspected the hollow torso devoid of organs and bones. “Though was there a hunter in the Association capable of crafting a replica like this?”

“Not that I know of,” Ahn Moonhyuk said.

“Could be an undisclosed skill,” Chaeyoon countered.

Son Chaeyoon countered Ahn Moonhyuk’s response, but unfortunately, it led to no definitive conclusion. Glancing at Kim Si-hoon, who had scurried off to a safe distance in the meantime, Eui-rim walked up to Seo Hae-gun.

“Seo Hae-gun-ssi,” Eui-rim called out quietly. “May I have a word with you for a moment?”

Leaning toward him immediately, Hae-gun raised an eyebrow with a playful smirk. “How odd. I feel like I heard something similar in Utopia’s core room. Should I tell Moonhyuk to step back this time too?”

“Huh? Me? Why?” At the mention of his name, Ahn Moonhyuk snapped his head up, visibly flustered.

Moonhyuk had been examining the corpse with Son Chaeyoon, blinking in confusion.

Without deliberating long, Eui-rim gestured for both of them to come over as well. Since he would be working alongside the Cheongho guild members for many days to come, he figured it was better to give them a brief explanation regarding his skill.

“Do you need soundproofing?” Son Chaeyoon offered.

“Is that possible?” Eui-rim asked, surprised.

Son Chaeyoon smiled brightly. “Not a hundred percent, but it should help quite a bit.”

“Then please do,” Eui-rim agreed.

When Eui-rim gave his assent, Son Chaeyoon’s index finger twitched, creating a muffled atmospheric pressure. As her innate ability was gas manipulation, she had apparently increased the local vacuum to form a sound barrier.

With his mind considerably more at ease, Eui-rim began to speak. He had been worried Kim Si-hoon might overhear, but now there was no hindrance in continuing the conversation.

“…Whoa. Holy crap. You can see the future?” Ahn Moonhyuk breathed.

“It’s not unconditional precognition,” Eui-rim clarified. “Nor can I see most of the future like that seer in India.”

Of course, even that seer hadn’t been able to foresee every future, eventually facing execution for failing to predict the emergence of the Shadows.

Looking around at his pensive companions, Eui-rim added, “At any rate, in that sense, I believe that drawing is the Sigil.”

“Makes sense,” Hae-gun agreed. “Kim Si-hoon said he’d never seen that drawing before either. That means it wasn’t there during the first raid, at least.”

Concurring with his assessment, Seo Hae-gun cast a brief glance at Kim Si-hoon snooping nearby and asked, “Are there any other hints?”

“No. It just says to eliminate the Sigil,” Eui-rim said.

“Then there’s no reason to delay,” Hae-gun said. “Chaeyoon.”

“On it,” Son Chaeyoon said.

The moment she was called, the sound barrier dissipated, making breathing feel noticeably lighter.

Once Ahn Moonhyuk moved the torso—still indistinguishable between a corpse and a mannequin—out of the way, Seo Hae-gun immediately began extracting moisture from the humid air. With nothing to disturb his momentary concentration, he was able to cast delicate skills without Eui-rim’s assistance.

Yet no matter how fiercely the torrent of water scrubbed the floor, the single eye remained indelible. While it looked in every way like a drawing done in blood, no matter how many times it was wiped and scrubbed, the Sigil remained untouched.

Once again, Ahn Moonhyuk was the first to take action. Scrubbing violently at the floor with the steel toe of his hunter boot, he pointed at the unyielding drawing.

“What gives? Rubbing it with my foot does nothing,” Moonhyuk complained. “Is it paint? Doesn’t feel like it either. Guild Master, can’t you crank up the water pressure and blast it?”

“Oppa,” Chaeyoon scolded. “If he blasts it any harder, the floor will collapse. Can’t you see the tiles are already cracking from the water jets?”

“Still, what else can we do?” Moonhyuk muttered. “Other than the Guild Master’s skill, there’s nothing else to wash it off with.”

Listening to their exchange, Seo Hae-gun pondered deeply before looking down at Eui-rim with furrowed brows. “Perhaps Eui-rim-ssi needs to remove it personally.”

“Me?” Eui-rim asked.

“After all, you’re the one who received the guide notice,” Hae-gun pointed out.

Even while saying so, Hae-gun looked reluctant, stepping close to Eui-rim’s side in a swift motion. If anything went wrong during the removal process, he seemed poised to pull Eui-rim out to safety first.

Eui-rim lightly dampened the sole of his shoe in the puddle Hae-gun had formed and rubbed the floor. If Hae-gun’s theory held true and he had to erase the one-eyed drawing personally, he wondered if this would be enough to scrub it away.