Chapter 56

Chapter 56

I slowly raised my head.

"Screech...!"

The monsters flinched under my gaze and began backing away.

Monsters were actually afraid of me.

A hollow laugh escaped my mouth.

What kind of ridiculous skill was this?

I couldn't help admiring it.

I began walking toward the monsters at a deliberately slow, almost leisurely pace.

More precisely, I approached the Nepenthes that had swallowed Choi Jiwoo.

I was wondering how to cut it without injuring him when...

That skill doesn't harm humans.

The bird kindly supplied an explanation.

Without hesitation, I swung the scythe.

WHOOSH!

"Screeeeech!"

The Nepenthes was cut apart.

It couldn't even put up a proper resistance before burning away in white light.

All the monsters in front of me disappeared.

The unconscious Choi Jiwoo fell limply to the ground.

At the same moment, I dropped the scythe and collapsed.

My entire body was trembling.

I'd only held the weapon for a few seconds.

Apparently, this was its side effect.

Damn it.

I closed my eyes and slowly steadied my breathing.

"Haa... haa..."

"Noona! Are you okay?"

"Ah... yeah..."

I swallowed and barely managed to nod.

"What happened?"

"Why did you take so long?"

"Choi Jiwoo!"

When we returned to the place where everyone had agreed to gather, the others welcomed us excitedly.

Well, their excitement seemed mostly directed toward Choi Jiwoo.

"Haa. Don't even ask..."

I had managed to wake Choi Jiwoo using Debuff Removal.

But some aftereffects remained, and he still couldn't properly support his own weight.

Naturally, Lee Junhyuk had been assigned to help him walk.

The moment Lee Junhyuk handed him over to his teammates, he collapsed flat onto the ground.

I crouched beside him.

I was still suffering from the aftereffects of using the Scythe of Light.

Han Siwoo watched us curiously.

"Did something happen to you two?"

"Jia noona was seriously amazing!"

Even while lying on the ground, Lee Junhyuk raised a thumb toward me.

The sight was so ridiculous that I chuckled weakly.

"So you're saying she killed all of them with some kind of skill?"

After hearing the whole story, my brother looked back and forth between Lee Junhyuk and me in disbelief.

"Yes! That's exactly what happened!"

"What kind of skill was it? You've never used anything like that before."

"Well, it's a long story... I got it recently."

"A skill like that exists? Don't healers usually have almost no offensive skills?"

Park Seungjun's eyes sparkled as he listened.

His enthusiasm was so intense that it made me uncomfortable.

I quietly looked away and forced a lifeless smile.

"Yeah. It just sort of happened..."

"Wow. If possible, could you show it to us later? A scythe made of light sounds incredibly cool."

"Well... we'll see."

The side effects were severe, so I wanted to avoid summoning it unless absolutely necessary.

But I didn't even have the energy to explain that.

I simply nodded.

Then Lee Junhyuk added something.

"Personally, I hope she doesn't use it too often."

"Why?"

"Because when she uses that thing... the items disappear along with the monsters."

...

Everyone fell silent.

After a moment, Han Siwoo cautiously broke the silence.

"Shouldn't we get moving? How much time do we have left?"

"Just a moment. Ah, only about fifty minutes now."

...That much time had already passed?

Seeing my expression, Park Seungjun quickly added,

"Don't worry too much. While we were waiting for you, we cleared out quite a few monsters in the surrounding area."

"Get up. Let's go."

Han Siwoo held out a hand to me.

"Yeah. We'd better."

Just as Park Seungjun had said, we didn't encounter a single monster while moving forward.

But we couldn't rule out the possibility that another wall was a monster.

Or perhaps the floor itself would be a monster this time.

Park Seungjun laughed when he noticed me carefully examining our surroundings.

"Don't worry. There weren't many monsters in this dungeon to begin with, and we've already killed the ones that were here."

"...Really?"

"Yes. Actually, there's something I'd like to ask. Is that friend of yours really F-rank?"

He pointed toward my brother.

I nodded awkwardly.

"Huh? Yes..."

Park Seungjun narrowed his eyes thoughtfully.

"Hmm. I don't think so. If you get the chance, he should undergo another rank evaluation. There's no way he's F-rank. Trust my judgment on this."

His words left me with mixed feelings.

So even other people can tell?

I wasn't particularly happy about that.

The higher someone's rank became, the more attention they attracted.

And attention inevitably brought troublesome situations.

Yet despite knowing there was nothing especially good about it, I felt the corners of my mouth trying to rise.

"Well, even if he gets a higher rank, it'll probably only be E-rank."

Park Seungjun merely smiled.

He didn't say anything.

Feeling strangely embarrassed, I closed my mouth.

We walked a little farther.

"Haa, damn it. This place is ridiculously big. Are we lost again?"

"I'm keeping my hand against the wall the entire time. I heard you can't get lost in a maze if you do that."

"Where do you keep picking up all this useless information? I told you, I don't trust you."

"That's seriously harsh."

Yoo Mina and Jo Kangjun were bickering.

Wanting to break the awkward silence, I casually commented,

"They seem lively."

"Right? They're good people."

Park Seungjun made no attempt to hide his fondness for them.

Even though I hadn't asked anything else, he continued talking.

"Honestly, when I first joined this party, I had no idea how I was supposed to work with people like them."

My eyes widened.

That sounded surprisingly similar to something I'd thought in the past.

Park Seungjun smiled as though he'd expected that reaction.

"I knew you'd understand. You're a leader too, Jia-ssi."

A leader...

Did I really deserve to call myself one?

"At first, I complained a lot about how our party was nothing but a bunch of misfits. But as you know, you never know when you might die inside a dungeon."

"That's true."

"After standing back-to-back with them at the boundary between life and death a few times, I suddenly realized my feelings toward them had changed. We'd only been together for a year. Human emotions are strange, aren't they?"

Despite how casually the conversation had begun, his words were surprisingly serious.

And strangely familiar.

They resembled thoughts I'd been carrying around for a long time.

"At first, I thought it was just companionship. You know, the affection that develops when you survive dangerous situations together. But that wasn't it."

"...Huh?"

Why did this conversation suddenly seem to be heading somewhere strange?

I raised my head.

Park Seungjun placed a finger against his lips, as though sharing a secret.

Then he carefully took something out of his pocket.

A ring box.

"I'm planning to confess to her once today's raid ends safely."

Park Seungjun glanced toward his teammates.

Surely the person he liked wasn't one of the men.

Which meant the only possibility was...

I followed his gaze.

Then my eyes met Yoo Mina's.

Startled, I immediately looked away.

"But why are you telling me this...?"

This wasn't exactly the kind of story you normally shared with someone you'd only just met.

At my question, he smiled sheepishly.

"That's a good question. I'm not entirely sure myself. Maybe our situations seemed similar, so I ended up saying something unnecessary. Please just forget about it."

He carefully returned the ring box to his pocket and smiled.

That only made me feel even more uncomfortable.

...What is he talking about?

Well, perhaps our situations were similar in some ways.

Still, something about what he'd said didn't sit quite right with me.

I decided to let it go.

People couldn't completely understand one another anyway.

My idle thoughts disappeared when monsters gradually began appearing again.

There was no longer time for casual conversation.

We focused on eliminating them.

And finally...

"We've arrived."

We reached the end of the passage.

A massive door stood before us.

"Twenty minutes left."

At Park Seungjun's words, I checked my own timer.

[Remaining Time: 85:17:41:47]

Then we should aim to finish this before roughly twenty-three more minutes pass.

"Ten minutes is more than enough to kill a D-rank boss."

Yoo Mina gave a crooked smile.

She had a point.

No matter how powerful a D-rank boss was, there were eight of us.

Unless something unexpected happened, we should be able to defeat it within twenty minutes if we hurried.

"Still, we'd better move quickly."

Everyone nodded with determined expressions.

Park Seungjun opened the door.

What greeted us on the other side was a painfully familiar sight.

Another maze.

"Another damn maze..."

My brother groaned in disgust.

The only obvious difference was that the walls were lower than the previous ones.

Of course, they were still extremely tall by our standards.

"More importantly, where's the boss...?"

I looked around.

Then the ground suddenly shook.

"An earthquake?"

"No. This is..."

THUD. THUD. THUD.

The shaking grew stronger.

No.

It was getting closer.

I had a feeling when I saw the maze...

[Minotaur]

Apparently, that was the boss of this dungeon.

A gigantic monster with the head of a bull stood above the towering maze walls, looking down at us.

It was so enormous that simply trying to look at its entire body made my neck ache.

"ROOOOOAR!"

A single roar made the soles of my feet tingle.

Park Seungjun looked up at the Minotaur and muttered,

"Haha... How are we supposed to kill that?"

"What do you mean, how? We just kill it!"

"H-Hey! Yoo Mina!"

Yoo Mina drew her sword and leaped into the air.

Then she began climbing the wall.

Watching her, my brother and Lee Junhyuk seemed to have their competitive spirits awakened.

They both grinned.

And neither smile inspired much confidence.

"She's right. Let's hurry up, finish this, and go home."

"Looks like we finally agree on something."

Yoo Mina reached the top of the wall and raised her long sword high.

Then she brought it down in a powerful arc toward the Minotaur's head.

CLANG!

"ROOOOOAR!"

The Minotaur staggered from the impact.