Chapter 54
The violently swirling dust slowly seeped through the gaps between the rocks.
Jo Mingyu crouched behind the thick formations of strange stone and narrowed his eyes as he quietly looked outside.
The noise that had filled the gorge when the monsters fled screaming had mostly faded, but a heavy pressure still lingered in the air.
"Soyeon, can you see it over there?"
Jo Mingyu asked in a whisper while lying flat against the ground.
Lee Soyeon was holding her staff close with her eyes shut.
She was carefully sending a detection spell toward the deeper area while keeping its mana fluctuations as low as possible.
"Just a little longer. I've almost got it."
She muttered without even wiping the cold sweat on her forehead.
Then her eyes suddenly opened.
"I can see it."
Her expression hardened.
"That's not a normal monster."
"How big is it?"
"Much bigger than an ordinary B-rank boss. It moves on four legs, and its entire bone structure is unnaturally thick."
She swallowed.
"All of its muscles are tightly packed, like it could leap at us at any moment."
As if proving her words, another series of heavy footsteps shook the ground from deeper inside the gorge.
Small stones lying on the floor trembled and clicked against one another.
Jo Mingyu pressed his face closer to the gap between the rocks and widened his view.
Through the pale dust, the outline of a gigantic beast became clearly visible.
Its hide looked as though pieces of black stone had been stuck all over it.
The muscles of its swollen hind legs looked powerful enough to cover dozens of meters in a single leap.
"Whoa... That's insane."
Jo Mingyu's mouth fell open.
"Isn't that a Blackstone Beast King?"
It was a mutated individual rarely seen in a normal dungeon ecosystem.
A party formation would probably collapse from a single graze of its front paw.
Tension spread across the faces of the party members who were hiding nearby.
But Jo Mingyu didn't stop studying its appearance.
"Wait."
His eyes narrowed.
"Is that bastard panting?"
"Huh?"
Park Junhyeok, who had been resting with his back against the rocks, looked over in surprise.
"Look carefully. Its chest is moving up and down like crazy."
Jo Mingyu pointed.
"It's breathing really hard. And there are deep wounds all over its skin."
He was right.
The Blackstone Beast King's thick hide was covered in clear scratches and deep tears.
It had obviously spent a considerable amount of energy forcing out the monsters that had previously occupied the deeper area.
The beast snorted heavily and irritably scratched the ground with one bloodstained front paw.
"This might actually be our chance."
Jo Mingyu licked his lips and looked around at the party.
The moment he noticed the monster's exhaustion, obvious expectation appeared in his eyes.
"A Blackstone Beast King's magic stone is basically worth whatever price the seller asks."
His excitement continued rising.
"Its hide sells for a fortune as material for special equipment too."
"And for a mutated individual that size, the additional danger allowance from the Association would easily go into the hundreds of millions."
Lee Soyeon swallowed and nodded slightly.
"It definitely changes things if it's already exhausted."
The atmosphere was completely different from a few minutes earlier, when everyone had only been thinking about running away.
The enormous reward and the obvious weakness before them were beginning to shake their judgment.
Even Park Junhyeok looked deeply conflicted as he rubbed the surface of his shield.
If he could hold it properly from the front...
And if Lee Chaeho, with that uncanny sense of timing, could exploit the openings...
Maybe they actually had a chance.
"Hunter Lee Chaeho."
Park Junhyeok turned toward him.
"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't tempted."
He glanced back toward the monster.
"If it's already that exhausted, we might actually have a reasonable chance..."
"Seo Eunbyeol."
Chaeho calmly cut him off and turned toward the healer sitting in the corner.
His voice was cold and dry, immediately cooling the atmosphere that had begun heating up.
"Exactly how much mana do you have left?"
Seo Eunbyeol flinched at suddenly being addressed.
"Uh... around forty percent."
"How much can a potion recover immediately right now?"
"Because I've already taken several in a row, I've built up some resistance."
She thought for a moment.
"Even if I drink one now, probably only around ten percent."
She looked at him.
"So around fifty percent total."
"Fifty percent."
Chaeho repeated the number.
Then he looked directly at her.
"With that much mana, can you heal me every time I get injured against that thing?"
Seo Eunbyeol became silent.
With her remaining mana, she could probably cover two or three hits strong enough to break bones.
And even that assumed she reacted in time.
Chaeho turned toward Lee Soyeon and Park Junhyeok next.
"How many barriers can you still cast, Lee Soyeon?"
Then his gaze moved toward the shield.
"And is your shield still reliable, Hunter Park Junhyeok?"
He pointed toward the center.
"I saw the hairline crack from when you blocked the wolves earlier."
Park Junhyeok stiffened and looked down.
There really was a faint crack in the shield.
Chaeho continued.
"Your fatigue hasn't fully disappeared either, has it?"
Nobody answered.
Then he looked around the party.
"And are everyone's emergency escape stones somewhere you can reach instantly?"
His voice remained flat.
"If everything goes wrong, you won't have time to dig through the bottom of a backpack or search inside a deep pocket."
"Ah..."
Jo Mingyu hurriedly checked his waist.
The leather pouch containing his emergency escape stone was tied shut.
In a real emergency, it would have taken several seconds just to untie it.
Chaeho clicked his tongue lightly.
"Money is great."
He slowly stood from where he had been leaning against the rock.
"Sell the magic stone, collect the danger allowance, and everyone's bank account becomes much healthier overnight."
Then his eyes hardened.
"But survival comes first."
He gestured toward the monster outside.
"Whether that thing is exhausted or not, we need to judge one thing coldly."
"After killing it, will we still be in a condition where we can walk out of this dungeon on our own two feet?"
Nobody argued.
Because everything Chaeho said was true.
They had focused on the monster's weakness and the massive reward.
