Chapter 39

“Seo Hae-gun-ssi.”

At the quiet call, Hae-gun turned back to him, his taut features clouding with a strangely troubled, conflicted shadow.

“Did I upset you?” Eui-rim ventured.

“Why would I be upset?”

If I knew the answer to that, would I be asking?

“What reason do I have to be angry? It’s not that.”

“…”

“I just have a few complicated thoughts to sort through,” Hae-gun muttered.

Perhaps feeling self-conscious about having snapped so defensively, Hae-gun rubbed the nape of his neck and offered the quiet explanation. Seeing the sharp edges of his expression soften slightly, Eui-rim nodded.

“Anyway, we’ll discuss the traits again once we’re outside. Don’t breathe a word of this to anyone else until then.”

“All right,” Eui-rim agreed readily.

In any case, since every newly awakened trait was fundamentally tied to Seo Hae-gun, Eui-rim had zero intention of broadcasting them to the world. Even the Supporter trait he had disclosed felt entirely distinct from an ordinary support ability, leaving him hesitant to bring it up to anyone else.

The portal to the Core Room manifested just as Moonhyuk returned, still grumbling under his breath. As the fallen meteors dissolved into dust across the expanse, a rift resembling a cavern mouth tore open in midair.

Originally, Utopia was designed to require conquering several distinct sectors in sequence, but owing to the dungeon’s bizarre mutation, the entire raid appeared to have been compressed into a single trial.

“…Should I hop down?” Moonhyuk asked as he trudged closer, glancing warily at Hae-gun before waving a hand in self-derision. “Never mind, stay seated. Maintaining a single steed until we clear out is no sweat. After all, just like the Guild Master said, I didn’t do a damn thing. Couldn’t even serve as a decent meat shield.”

It seemed Hae-gun’s sharp barb had genuinely stung his pride. What should I do? Ought I to comfort him?

Fortunately, the sour mood didn’t linger. Eui-rim was notoriously terrible at consoling people, so he felt immense relief when Moonhyuk quickly pivoted on his own.

“Still, I was honestly blown away,” Moonhyuk remarked. “〈Rewinding Hand〉 was churning the whole time, so I only got a proper look during that final clash, but Hunter Kang Eui-rim practically carried the entire raid. This is the very first time I’ve ever seen the Guild Master walk out of a dungeon looking this immaculate. Normally I end up drenched as if caught in a monsoon or choking on lake water.”

“Do you still get swept away even while wearing protective gear?” Eui-rim asked, mildly curious.

“Ah, it’s manageable if I suit up, but I hate heavy armor. Too stiff.”

Then isn’t Hae-gun the wronged party here? That was practically the equivalent of taking a casual stroll along the coastline during a mandatory typhoon evacuation.

“By the way, about your rank… you didn’t happen to fake your registration, did you?” Moonhyuk asked, eyes narrowing playfully.

“Pardon?”

“No, seriously. That wasn’t the kind of skill handling a D-rank is capable of. You backed him up with pinpoint precision—snap, snap, snap—landing right in cadence with his every movement. I’ve never seen anyone support an S-rank like that.”

“Ah…”

“If you wield your skills like that, guilds would line up around the block to sign you. Are you truly satisfied sticking to short-term contracts with us? Doesn’t it feel like a total waste of your talent?”

Eui-rim knew Moonhyuk was naturally gregarious, but the hunter’s affable chatter vividly reminded him of Director Lee Sang-jong. Looking at Ahn Moonhyuk, who stirred unexpected nostalgia for his days at the public health clinic, Eui-rim offered only a noncommittal smile. Since Hae-gun had kept the status window anomaly secret from his subordinate, silence remained Eui-rim’s safest recourse.

Passing beyond the scorched meadow and stepping through the rift, they emerged into a space drowned in stark white. It bore the solemn architecture of a grand temple, though the plaster statue enshrined atop the central dais—sculpted in the shape of massive, balanced scales—struck an eerie note.

“Uh… Guild Master. Wait a second. Is that…?” Moonhyuk stammered.

Sprawled beneath those colossal scales lay, astonishingly, the carcass of a monster.

The true ruler of Utopia—a ram-headed magistrate—lay dead upon the flagstones, pooled in thick, purplish-crimson blood.

The steady click of Hae-gun’s boots shattered the heavy silence. Striding forward without a shred of hesitation, he crouched beside the grotesque corpse and began sifting through its ceremonial robes.

Following closely behind Moonhyuk, a biting frost seized Eui-rim. The air was razor-sharp, freezing the lungs as though they had walked straight into a meat locker. Hunching his shoulders reflexively, Eui-rim buried his hands deep into the steed’s thick mane. Had he not clung to its ambient warmth, he would have put on an embarrassing display of violent shivering.

As they drew near, Hae-gun pulled his hands back from the corpse and rose to his feet. “It didn’t die just now. The blood has already coagulated.”

Looking at the fresh appearance of the carcass, Hae-gun’s words sounded impossible. For monster blood to congeal to such an extent, at least half a day would have had to pass—and by all rules of dungeon physics, the corpse should have dissolved into blue motes of light within minutes.

“Whoa, what the hell. It really is clotted. But why hasn’t it despawned? Shouldn’t the corpse have vanished after five minutes?” Moonhyuk muttered, bewildered.

A low curse escaped Moonhyuk as he ground his boot into the dark puddle, failing to produce even a smear. Staring at the blood congealed solid like dark ice, Eui-rim asked, “Could this be tied to the dungeon’s mutation?”

“Most likely,” Hae-gun replied, his jaw set.

“Ah, damn it all.”

At Hae-gun’s confirmation, Moonhyuk let out a miserable groan. The realization that the anomalies reached beyond the distorted fields and infested the sanctum of the Core Room itself quickly shifted his annoyance into sharp anxiety.

Thumping his chest in frustration, Moonhyuk raised his voice. “Are we going to end up walking away empty-handed? This entire dungeon is crawling with bugs. The boss is already dead, there’s no loot dropping… Hell, at this rate, I’m starting to wonder if the exit portal will even activate.”

Hae-gun’s grim silence confirmed he shared the exact same concern. Had the boss simply been replaced by another horrific monstrosity, they could have fought it and adapted. But with their path forward blocked by an unscripted dead end, even the seasoned S-rank hunter appeared at a loss.

Eui-rim dismounted carefully from the steed and approached the altar. A rank stench reminiscent of ammonia hit him, turning his stomach. Suppressing the rising nausea, he leaned closer to examine the fallen carcass. Though Hae-gun had already searched it, the lingering hunch that something had been overlooked urged Eui-rim forward.

Just then, a familiar pattern caught his eye.

Etched into the beast’s leathery neck was the sigil of an hourglass.

“Seo Hae-gun-ssi,” Eui-rim called out, his voice taut.

At the urgency in his voice, Hae-gun closed the distance in a single long stride. Eui-rim peeled back the matted wool around the creature’s collar as far as he could, exposing the pale skin of its neck.

“This is the mark I told you about earlier.”

“The mark?”

“Yes. The hourglass sigil at the dungeon entrance. This is the exact same thing.”

Instead of the recognition Eui-rim anticipated, Hae-gun only blinked at him in confusion. He stared intently at the spot Eui-rim was indicating, his brow furrowing, before calling over Moonhyuk, who was prowling the perimeter.

“Moonhyuk. What do you see here?”

“About what?”

Moonhyuk’s face twisted in bewilderment at the abrupt question. Pointing down at the exposed flesh, Hae-gun asked, “Do you see a mark resembling an hourglass?”

“Where the heck would there be an hourglass?” Moonhyuk asked, leaning in.

“Right here. Along the neck.”

“No? It’s completely bare.”

“What about at the dungeon gate? Did you notice any strange drawing there, either?” Hae-gun pressed.

“Nope. Not a thing. Why?”

His answers were delivered without a shred of hesitation, as if wondering what kind of ghost stories the two were concocting. Eui-rim looked between the baffled Moonhyuk and the grimly frowning Hae-gun.

“Don’t tell me… am I the only one who can see this sigil?” Eui-rim murmured.

“It certainly seems that way,” Hae-gun murmured back, his eyes narrowing.

Eui-rim hurriedly reexamined the corpse, but nothing had vanished. Plainly visible upon the graying skin were two triangles meeting at their tips. Though it wasn’t shifting fluidly like the one at the entrance gate, the crude, childlike strokes confirmed beyond doubt that it was the very same brand.

Why am I the only one who can see this symbol? Is this also connected to having crossed the timeline?

The likelihood was terrifyingly high. Hadn’t that opalescent pillar of light at the dungeon entrance evoked the dreadful eyes of the Fingers? The horrifying hallucinations of his past life when entering, the impossible mutations within—all of it felt inextricably tied to the price paid for defying time.

Then what should I do now?

A deep chill crept down his spine at the horrifying realization that this catastrophe had likely been triggered by his very presence. Even if they had managed to survive within manageable bounds this time, the grim knowledge that such luck could not last cast a suffocating shadow over him.

What if anomalies strike like this when we enter the Tower of Time? What if the future deviates entirely from what I remember before we even get there? Will I truly be able to bear the weight of it all?