BRH 12

He searched his memories, but they were still jumbled, and no memory ‘popped’ out.

“How about we wait just one more day?”

As Ha Do-heon spoke, gazes flew from all directions and landed on him.

“And if they don’t come even after a day?”

“Then… what choice do we have?”

Ha Do-heon watched Lime, who was slamming its tail down on a monster’s neck, his eyes gleaming quietly.

“We’ll have to leave.”

They couldn’t stay here forever. The water and food they had brought were running out, and no one knew when the Hunters in the Boss Room would breathe their last.

One by one, people slumped down powerlessly. Some roughly wiped their faces, others wiped away tears. Shadows filled the faces that had come to terms with reality.

---

They had said they would wait one more day, but even that became difficult.

“More… more are coming out! There are too many.”

“It doesn’t look like it can handle them all. Uh-oh, they’re focusing their attacks!”

“Hey… don’t you feel a little dizzy?”

“Ugh, my head feels like it’s splitting…”

The situation changed rapidly every moment. Lime was stepping up to eliminate the monsters, but the number of monsters emerging from the open Boss Room of the Double Dungeon was steadily increasing.

To make matters worse, at some point, people began complaining of headaches, chills, and dizziness. It was a side effect caused by the poison emanating from the blood of the dying monsters, dissolving into the air and increasing in concentration.

At this rate, they would all be poisoned and die.

“We need to get out of here.”

Ha Do-heon rose from his spot and peered through the narrow gap. Lime was still handling the situation well. ‘If we take this opportunity to run towards the entrance, we might be able to escape.’ Ha Do-heon persuaded the others with those words.

“B-but how…”

“I have detection and sensing skills. I’ll try to guide us to the exit, avoiding the monsters.”

“How can we with so many monsters!”

“We’ll all die from the poison if we stay here anyway.”

The hope of those who had been waiting for rescue plummeted coldly. Frustration snowballed. They couldn’t wait any longer.

Ha Do-heon finally made up his mind. He would try to get them out of here alive, no matter what. He would coax them out, and then, with an invisible speed, slam his fist down on the monsters. That should work somehow.

But the problem was, what was the ‘power’ of that invisible speed?

‘Lime is at 20%, so should I use about… 3%?’

Okay, 3% it is for now.

Once he made his decision, people quickly began to devise a plan. There was a certain interval between the appearance of the monsters. After Lime finished off a wave of monsters, there would be a gap of about five minutes, and they planned to use that time to escape.

“Now!”

When Lime ‘pretended’ to falter, struggling, the people saw the cave where the wave had stopped and frantically ran out. Ha Do-heon pretended to be flustered and came out last.

“Which way do we go!”

“T-to the left!”

Ha Do-heon, pretending to use his skills, pointed the way and turned his head to signal Lime. Lime, lifting its head like a rabbit, quickly began to move at Do-heon’s signal. They signaled each other to split up and meet later at a different location.

“Where to this time!”

“Go straight ahead!”

At Ha Do-heon’s words, the people diligently scurried through the cave like chicks. They didn’t even remember how many forks they had passed.

When they pushed through the last fork and stopped, they were not greeted by an exit.

“What… is this?”

“It’s a dead end!”

“We can’t escape like this…!”

It was the deepest, most eerie chamber in the cave. The people immediately turned hostile at the fact that the place they had run to was not an exit. However, Ha Do-heon collapsed before the people who were about to turn their faces, eyes wide as fists, ready to lash out.

“Hyung, what’s wrong? Oh no… I think he’s poisoned!”

The youngest quickly reached out to check on Ha Do-heon. It was then that people felt an indescribable pressure, their knees buckling and collapsing.

“Haa… haa!”

They gasped for breath, crawled on the ground, clutched their heads, and drooled. What… was this? Killing intent? No, this was formless terror.

An invisible giant was pressing down on them, trampling them. It was a darkness deeper than the deep sea. The people trembled in fear, convulsed, and foamed at the mouth.

One by one, the staggering people collapsed, and soon the chamber fell silent. Only then did the man who had collapsed first stealthily get up and scratch his head.

“Ah… was that too much…? I only released a little bit of power to make them faint. I-I’m sorry. I didn’t do it on purpose…”

He just… breathed out a little. Ha Do-heon suddenly felt gloomy, as if his physique surpassed that of a dinosaur. He wondered if he would even be able to live among people like this…

His gloom was short-lived. Do-heon checked the breathing of the fallen people and then raised his head.

“First, I need to take care of… those guys.”

The monsters, having smelled the scent of humans, had already gathered outside the chamber. Do-heon loosened his wrists and headed for the entrance.

The reason he had driven the people here was simple. Why?

Because once the Scorpion had taken over the Dungeon, the survivors could not leave the Dungeon. The Scorpion could solidify its saliva into cement-like rock, using it to block the entrance and gather its prey in one place to hunt. It was an intelligent creature with that habit.

Ha Do-heon had scanned the entire Dungeon when he sent Lime away. By then, the entrance had already been sealed with rock. He had hoped that the rescuers sent by the Hunter Management Bureau would break the rock, but since no rescuers had entered yet, either they had given up on the rescue, or they weren’t capable of entering, or there was some other reason.

“Still, Tae-yi-ssi seems like he could do it… Ah, he entered a Dungeon, didn’t he.”

It would take about fifteen days for him to come out of there, so okay. Impossible.

So, Ha Do-heon had isolated the people as far away from the Boss Room as possible.

If there was no rescue, what could he do but go out himself?

Creak- Hiss!

As he stepped out of the chamber, the Scorpion Monsters, swarming together, raised their tails high and surrounded Ha Do-heon. He lightly rotated his arms to loosen his shoulders and body.

Hiss! Screeeech-!

The monster in the front plunged its rebar-like tail down. Ha Do-heon tilted his head to the side to avoid the poison needle, grabbed the monster’s tail, and lightly clenched his fist.

“First, lightly.”

And he slammed his fist into the monster. Here, there was one thing Ha Do-heon had overlooked. He had never properly tested his strength since his regression.

If he had entered a Dungeon to test it, things might have been different, but since a B-class Hunter’s strength was enough to loot Magic Stones, he had lived only as a human since his regression, and he had not divided the upper and lower limits of his strength.

In other words, he had not learned the sense of controlling his power. And that was clearly evident.

Kwakwakwakwang-!

With a series of explosions, dozens of monsters positioned in the corridor had their heads blown off and were pushed back. The aftermath of the explosion only stopped when it reached the Boss Room.

“…….”

Ha Do-heon looked down at his fist, then pursed his lips and squatted down. I, uh… I definitely hit it lightly. Why is it like this…? Ha Do-heon’s eyes trembled as he looked at the monster that had exploded without a trace.

His lightly clenched fist had bones that were more prominent than a human’s hand, and despite having flesh, it looked emaciated. The strange patterns that surfaced on his skin shimmered like sparkling sand in the water. When he used his power, faint wave-like patterns appeared on Do-heon’s skin. When he spread his hand, his nails were sharply honed.

“…Well, I have to do it anyway, ha.”

The Dungeon had quickly turned grotesque with the blood and flesh of the exploded monsters. Ha Do-heon walked down the dark and gloomy path and soon arrived at the Boss Room. Lime, who had already arrived in the Boss Room, had gathered the survivors to one side and was protecting them.

“Good job, Lime. Take the people and go to where the survivors are. Uh… let’s not eat them, okay?”

-Creak?

“Ah, heal the injured ones a bit. They’re all still breathing, right?”

-Creak-

The eight injured people who had collapsed in the Boss Room were lucky. The Scorpion enjoyed keeping its prey alive and eating them alive. Fortunately, the Hunters had only been poisoned and were all still alive.

While Lime, in the form of a Scorpion, carried them on its back and scampered away, Ha Do-heon scanned the Boss Room. As he released a little bit of his energy, the Scorpions gathered in the Boss Room huddled together and retreated into a corner.

With their animalistic instincts, they recognized Ha Do-heon as their natural enemy.

“The Double Dungeon Gate is… ah, there it is.”

A large Dungeon Gate was prominently located on one side of the Boss Room. It was before Ha Do-heon even headed there. The entire cave faintly vibrated.

A dark shape flickered beyond the Double Dungeon. Something was trying to come out. Something enormously huge.

Creak- Squeak! Hiss!

The remaining monsters trembled all at once, as if terrified. They lost their hierarchy and lay flat like pushed-back beasts.

Thud-

Something pushed its head out from inside the Double Dungeon. Just as he was about to swing his fist at the thing that was emerging as if tearing through a membrane…