“Barrett.”
At Siwon’s call, Barrett’s true form revealed itself from behind his back.
A massive serpent with snow-white scales.
“Find the child.”
The snake ❖ Nоvеlight ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеlight) smiled and moved its mouth. It seemed to be speaking, but Siwon couldn’t hear a thing.
Then Barrett opened its mouth wide and began gliding straight along the length of the terminal.
Sccchhhhkk!
Screams were sucked into its open jaws. The colossal body plowed forward in a line, then swung back in a half-circle.
Chomp!
Blood splattered across Siwon’s pale, ashen face.
Barrett shook its head after devouring every beastkin in its path.
Guru wasn’t here.
Siwon wiped his face with the hand still holding the gun. After licking the metallic blood off his lips, the true form vanished without a trace.
The Swamp of Erosion.
As the slumbering corruption in the swamp awoke, it flowed along the canal.
Creatures touched by the corruption began undergoing grotesque mutations, attacking every living thing in sight.
Because of this, the snow leopards had been fighting relentlessly to stop the infected entities.
Until the [Special Purifying Acorn] could cleanse the source of the corruption.
Naohyeong stood atop a sheer cliff, looking down at the unit led by Chun Gyuri.
Chun Gyuri and the Brom guild members were moving into a secluded, overgrown passage per Ham Honggi’s orders.
Their destination: a heavily polluted concentration zone of corrupted entities.
Everyone avoided it, but they couldn’t defy the general’s command.
Besides, they were confident enough to think those corrupted monsters wouldn’t pose a problem.
What they didn’t expect was that they’d have to keep fighting them nonstop until the swamp was fully purified.
Naohyeong raised an [Ordinary Purifying Acorn].
To the eye, it looked like a regular acorn.
But in battles within corrupted zones, the [Ordinary Purifying Acorn] played an essential role.
It could temporarily halt the spread of corruption.
Which meant no new corrupted monsters would spawn for a time.
However, what the Brom members had been issued weren’t [Ordinary Purifying Acorns]—they were just regular acorns easily picked up in the forest.
The stronger they are, the more they tend to let their guard down...
Naohyeong smirked at Chun Gyuri’s arrogance and shifted his perspective.
Now viewing the scene through the eyes of an eagle soaring overhead.
Because of Chun Gyuri’s watchfulness, he’d failed to retrieve the flying squirrel.
When many snow leopards didn’t return from trying to retrieve her, Chun Gyuri had begun opposing further deployment.
To avoid suspicion, he had no choice but to focus on cleansing the corrupted zone.
Where the hell did she go?
During a brief lapse in surveillance, the flying squirrel seemed to have slipped out of the farm. Judging by the direction of movement, the only place an Outsider would head... was here. The corrupted zone.
Trying to join up with Brom, maybe?
The Outsider couldn’t leave the beastkin zone that formed the RP Dungeon stage, and Brom’s base of operations just happened to be here.
Naohyeong panned his vision back and forth across the vicinity.
He’d planted eyes in birds, scouting from the sky—but still no sign of the child.
Damn it, time’s running out...
A few birds weren’t enough to search the entire area.
...Should I have Ham Honggi send out the snow leopard unit again?
He was just turning away, kicking a pebble in frustration—
Naohyeong froze as a cold, murderous pressure crashed down on him.
It was suffocating, like someone pressing his head into the dirt. Oppressive, humiliating.
He clenched his teeth.
What the hell...?
Cold sweat broke across his face.
Shit!
With effort, Naohyeong lifted his head.
The one radiating the murderous aura was standing there with both hands stuffed in his pockets, glaring crookedly at him.
Naohyeong tried not to show how rattled he was.
Serhi’s face was stiff, like stone, sunk in unreadable gloom.
Is it because of his injury?
The kid had always been a monster. He expected Serhi to survive—but he hadn’t thought the boy would come at him with such obvious hostility just because he hadn’t reached out.
“Y-You’re alive, huh, kid? Where the hell were you? I was trying to find you too, but with Chun Gyuri in the way—”
But the boy said something completely unexpected.
“Why are you looking for the flying squirrel?”
“...Huh?”
How the hell did he know that?
Serhi grabbed Naohyeong by the collar and slammed him into a tree.
“Guhk!”
“I asked why you’re looking for the flying squirrel.”
“Why else?! Hrk! It’s because of the acorns!”
“Acorns?”
Serhi pulled an acorn out of his pocket.
“This one?”
“Is... is that the acorn?”
“What were you gonna do with it?”
“T-That’s...”
“See? You didn’t even care.”
Naohyeong choked on his words. Serhi twisted his lips into a smirk.
[Activating skill ‘Dust to Dust, Ash to Ash.’]
–Designated organic material reverts to dirt and sand.
“...Huh?”
Naohyeong raised his right hand in a panic.
His entire right arm was crumbling into dry sand grains.
“Aaaah...!”
Ssshhhhh. The grains trickled to the ground. His face turned deathly pale as he shook his head in disbelief.
“No, no! Serhi! Spare me!”
But Serhi simply stared at the begging man in silence.
Naohyeong fell to his knees, clutching the sand in his arms as he screamed through clenched teeth.
“Stop it, stop! Serhiiiiiiii!”
Serhi calmly stepped on Naohyeong’s left hand as he frantically tried to scoop the sand.
[Activating skill ‘Shaped of Dust and Ash.’]
–Synthesizes dust and ash into organic matter.
“You ready to talk now?”
Once Serhi restored the arm, Naohyeong cradled his recovered hand close to his chest.
“Hahh... hahh... ugh...”
His mind was spinning faster than ever. He had to get out of this somehow.
“Talk.”
“W-Wait. Just wait a second, Serhi. This isn’t the time for us to be doing this. The teacher’s waiting in the swamp.”
Serhi paused, his tone sharp.
“Irina?”
“Y-Yeah...! Irina’s here!”
The corruption hangs like mist here...
Kim Junhwan, guildmaster of Freefall, rubbed his goosebumped arms as he scanned the area.
The contamination was so thick that even most A-Ranks couldn’t enter the marshland near the [Blood Clot].
At the center of the swamp stood the source of the erosion—an upright, vertically stretched oval mass. The guild members called it the [Blood Clot].
Their goal was to eliminate that clot with a [Special Purifying Acorn] and clear the RP Dungeon.
As usual, the dungeon’s difficulty wasn’t that high—everything was going smoothly so far.
Well, probably thanks to Chun Gyuri managing Ham Honggi.
She seemed to be struggling since Ham Honggi was playing the general this time, but she was the one who brought him in. She had to deal with it.
Just then, he felt a presence near the [Blood Clot]ovel.com
Who’s that?
Junhwan turned his head.
That face...
“Huh? Guildmaster Chun? Weren’t you just with Brom’s first team? When did you get back here?”
Chun Gyuri, who had been peeling off pieces of the [Blood Clot] and storing them in her inventory, turned around with a serene smile.
“I’ve been here the whole time. You must’ve mistaken someone else for me.”
Was that so? Junhwan scratched his head and gave a sheepish smile.
“Yeah, I guess I did. So many people around, hard to keep track.”
Today, Chun Gyuri responded in an unusually calm tone.
“Did you come here alone?”
“Oh, I was just checking on things and ended up wandering over. Man, I really hope this wraps up soon... The corruption’s thick here. We need tighter restrictions. No point in letting people in only to get hurt—it just means more work for the ones who survive.”
He started rambling to hide his embarrassment.
But instead of replying, Chun Gyuri simply smiled and pressed her index finger against her lower lip.
“Guildmaster, don’t you wonder what would happen if an Outsider were consumed by the corruption?”
“...Huh?”
“No special reason. I just suddenly got curious. Don’t you?”
Still with her finger to her lips, Chun Gyuri tilted her head and smiled.
A wave of unease crawled over him.
Guildmaster?
He’d worked with Chun Gyuri for years. She had never once called him “Guildmaster.” It was always “Guildie Kim.”
So then what is that?
What the hell was that thing pretending to be Chun Gyuri?
Tension flooded his spine. His pupils contracted sharply.
That wasn’t Chun Gyuri.
His instincts as a seasoned Hunter whispered urgently:
Kill it. Now.

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