CH 29

The contamination level of Shin Sooha was excessively high.

I resolved to purify him whenever I got the chance, so I ultimately pulled Salt out of the Infinite Pocket.

‘…He’s sleeping well. Just as the bastard Taeju said, it seems quite comfortable.’

As if it doesn’t matter where he goes, he goes into the Infinite Pocket. Even when I take him out, he doesn’t open his eyes, as if he was about to sleep.

“Salt?”

“Ppi-ppi.”

At his annoyed chirp, as if asking why I woke him, a chuckle slipped out of my mouth. Is he a cat or what? Does he sleep 20 out of 24 hours?

After shaking his head softly, I placed Salt on my head. Even half-asleep, Salt seemed to know where he was being placed, and I felt him grabbing my hair.

“Ppi, ppi.”

“Alright, alright. I won’t wake you up anymore, so go back to sleep.”

Whether Salt truly fell back asleep, there was no response. I shrugged my shoulders and looked at Shin Sooha. Being a Hunter, he probably heard Salt’s voice due to his sharp hearing, but he didn’t look our way.

So it meant that the conversation we had earlier was genuinely out of concern for Salt and me.

‘What a good person.’

There’s no way Shin Sooha wouldn’t know about Seo Go-woon’s crazy antics that even slow-witted Michael knows. Despite knowing everything from the beginning, Shin Sooha has always been quite mannered.

He gave gifts, and he saved me when it was dangerous.

‘Isn’t it just an excuse saying you are bored?’

Neither of us were particularly talkative, so the only conversation we shared since coming out of the dungeon was about Salt. For someone who claimed to bring me along out of boredom, he didn’t initiate conversation, nor did he prompt me to say anything.

‘His intentions were genuinely pure after all.’

A warmth filled my chest at a feeling I had never experienced before, either when I was living as Kim Hae Ah, or when I had possessed Seo Go-woon.

Even when I was Kim Hae Ah with no reputation, I had never met such a person. I felt guilty and sorry for unnecessarily being wary of him earlier.

“We’ve reached the boss room.”

“Okay.”

Upon reaching the boss room, Shin Sooha halted. Contrary to the doors of the boss rooms we had seen so far, the door before us had a large, half-moon-shaped red jewel embedded in its center.

I silently sidled up next to Shin Sooha. When I had tested it a few times with Taeju, I confirmed that even a slight touch would slowly purify him. I only intended to touch him lightly.

As expected, the purification process began.

[Shin Sooha – Contamination Level 72%]

“Are you scared?”

“Huh? Ah, yes.”

‘He must have not felt the purification energy.’

It seemed Shin Sooha mistakenly thought I was scared because I was touching him. Although it was a ridiculous misunderstanding, I thought it was better for him to keep misunderstanding, so I promptly replied.

Then, Shin Sooha held out his hand. “Let me hold your hand.”

‘Huh? He’s offering to hold my hand?’

If we hold hands before the boss room, who’s going to fight the boss? Does he mean we can still beat the boss even while holding hands?

I looked down at his long, elegant hand, puzzled. 

“We can still fight monsters even while holding hands.”

‘Well, if you say so. I’m all for it.’

It was frustrating for the purification to be slow and intermittent anyway, so this was a good thing.

I immediately took his hand.

[Shin Sooha – Contamination Level 52%]

As expected! The contamination level fell significantly at once when I held his hand.

A satisfied smile appeared on my face as I looked at Shin Sooha.

With a 20% decrease in contamination all at once, this already handsome guy seemed even more handsome.

‘Does contamination make one’s face ugly?’

Somehow, Shin Sooha seemed to become more handsome as his contamination level decreased.

“Aren’t we going in?”

But why is he still standing here and not going into the boss room? Did he sense something!

Just then, the gem before us turned blue.

“We have to wait for it to turn blue to enter. We can go in now.” Shin Sooha touched the gem as he replied.

‘Oh, there’s a timing to when the boss room opens.’

Sure enough, Shin Sooha clearly didn’t feel anything while being purified. Unlike Taeju, who was like a slime melting away, Shin Sooha didn’t show any change in expression.

“Let’s go.”

With a ground-shaking noise, the door to the boss room split open. And with a deafening roar, a giant orc charged towards us.

“Huh?!”

I involuntarily shrunk back, seeing the boss charging at me instead of the usual sleeping one.

“It’s okay.”

The charging orc flew across in an instant and crashed into the wall.

“That’s the boss, right?”

“No, the boss is over there.”

Shin Sooha pointed towards a corner of the room with his opposite hand.

“Uh, um, that?”

What Shin Sooha pointed at was a mushroom the same height as me. It was colorful, but it just looked like an ordinary mushroom.

“That mushroom is controlling the orc. Wait a moment.”

Shin Sooha, I don’t know when he took it out, threw a dagger towards the mushroom. Then, the orc that had been pinned to the wall stepped in front of the mushroom and parried the dagger.

“It’s true.”

“Yes.”

What’s with the Cordyceps? Some mushroom controlling an orc.

I looked at Shin Sooha with a flabbergasted expression on my face in this new dungeon world.

[Shin Sooha – Contamination 22%]

‘I think I don’t need to purify him any further than this.’

It’s better to purify completely each time, but given the current circumstances, it should be okay to just do this much.

“Fight without holding hands.”

“Aren’t you scared?”

“No, seeing how strong Guild Master Shin Sooha is, I am not scared.”

Shin Sooha, who was chuckling, let go of my hand.

‘It seems like he really doesn’t feel anything.’

It was a completely different reaction from Taeju, who somehow kept holding onto Salt even when the purification was complete.

“Then let’s quickly defeat it and go.”

After he finished speaking, Shin Sooha drew his sword.

And it was over in a flash, defeating the boss.

People were bustling in the guild cafeteria.

Someone was badmouthing the guild, someone was cursing their superior, and then the cafeteria suddenly fell silent.

Three men and one woman. They were members of Seo Go-woon’s party, recently made famous in the Sunset Guild.

All of them looked ragged, as if they had been rolling around somewhere, their arms trembling as they held their trays.

“They’re like that again today.”

“What on earth were they doing to end up like that?”

Seemingly oblivious to the murmurings, the party members filled their trays with food with a strained effort and sat at the nearest table.

They all sighed simultaneously, looking as if they were carrying heavy burdens on their shoulders, and shoveled food into their mouths with trembling spoons.

Their appearance looked like they were eating just to survive, and the people in the cafeteria couldn’t take their eyes off them.

‘Why on earth are they like that?’

‘I don’t know.’

As people nearby communicated with their eyes, someone approached the party members.

“Hanjae.”

“Ah, sunbae (senior).”

Hanjae stood up wobbly from his seat and greeted with a 90-degree bow.

The party members looked at Hanjae with wide eyes.

Sensing their gaze, Hanjae awkwardly smiled and said, “This is a senior from the party I used to be in.”

The three, with a dazed mind, took in the information provided by Hanjae and gave a slight nod to the man.

“I came to greet because I know Hanjae, but you all look…”

Even under the man’s scrutinizing gaze, the three didn’t seem to mind.

They hurriedly shoveled more rice into their mouths, as if they wanted to leave this place sooner.

The man shrugged at the sight of them, sat down in the seat next to Hanjae who was still standing.

“Sit down and eat.”

“Yes.”

Hanjae sat down heavily and began stuffing food into his mouth just like the others.

“How is it, partying with the bastard?”

At the man’s question, Ga-eul swallowed the food in his mouth and replied, “…Why?”

“No, just curious. That bastard, you know?”

At the laughter-laden words, Hanjae froze like a stone and Ga-eul sighed and put down his spoon.

The other two also had the same reaction. For the past few days, every time they came for lunch, at least one or two such people approached them, so it was understandable.

They had become accustomed to the tiresome gazes and fumbling questions, but somehow these kinds of inquiries never became familiar.

“Hey, guys.”

Hanjae didn’t know what to do and alternately looked at the three people and the man.

‘After all, being so gentle can be a sin too.’

Just as Min-hee was about to take the lead, biting her tongue, she opened her mouth, “What kind of answer do you want to hear?”

Instead of her, it was Woojae, the newly joined healer, who spoke first.

“What?”

“Do you want to hear that he’s trash, he’s crazy, he rides on the back of the vice-guildmaster and does nothing, he curses every time he opens his mouth, he’s difficult to work with because he’s always troublesome?”

Earlier, his eyes were blank from exhaustion, but now Woojae was looking at the man with a clear gaze.

The man grimaced under an unidentifiable pressure.

“What is that attitude towards your senior?!”

“Senior? Are you saying you can talk to your senior like that?”

“Like that? I’ve been asking nicely.” The man slammed the table, stood up, and began to berate Woojae.

Then, Woojae took a card out of his pocket and threw it on the table. “XX. I’m your senior, so now I can also talk freely, right?”

The man looked at the card on the table.

[Name: Jung Woojae

Job: Healer

Rank: A

Joining Date: XXXX. X. X]

What Woojae had thrown was a guild member card with his name, job, and joining date.

“Huh? What?”

He could not believe that the healer, who looked like a new high school student, had joined three years before him, and alternated between looking at the guild member card and Woojae.

“When someone kindly tells you to leave, you should. As a junior, you should listen to your seniors, right?”

The man hesitated, spat out a curse word and then disappeared somewhere.

Woojae sighed and retrieved his card, and Ga-eul, who didn’t know what to do, sat Hanjae down and handed him a spoon. “Don’t worry about it and eat. Otherwise, we won’t be able to run the dungeon in the afternoon.”

“Ah.”

While the man and Woojae were arguing, Min-hee, who had briefly closed her eyes, moaned painfully and mechanically moved her spoon. “…I’m exhausted.”

Once again, Woojae, whose eyes had become blank, muttered and shoved rice into his mouth.

Ga-eul and Hanjae did the same.

They were really tired, extremely tired. They had never felt fatigue or exhaustion from work since they became hunters, but now they were very tired.

“If we say we’ll rest today…” Hanjae, who as the eldest brother, felt responsible to lead the others, proposed with a hint of apology in his voice. If they wanted, he planned to confidently request it from the party leader, Go-woon.

But,

“No. If we do…” 

Ga-eul couldn’t finish her sentence.

“Yeah. If we do…”

Neither could Min-hee.

“No. We have a break tomorrow. If we unnecessarily provoke him, he might ask us to go to the dungeon even tomorrow.”

At Woojae’s words, the three people’s faces turned pale in an instant.

Seo Go-woon.

Party leader Go-woon was really a nutjob.

If he was a nutjob in the conventional sense, it would’ve been better, but the current Seo Go-woon was a weirdo in a slightly different sense.

The first day they returned from running the dungeon, the three of them thought that Go-woon was not as rumored and was a good person.

But two days after clearing the dungeon, Go-woon, who came with Woojae, revealed his craziness.

“Now, we’ll run two dungeons a day.”

He smiled so brightly. Anyone looking might have thought he had struck it rich.

Still, up to that point, it was okay. Even if it was two runs a day, the dungeons they ran in the afternoon were all D-class, and it was better for them if their levels rose quickly.

‘We thought too lightly of it.’

Min-hee regretted not being able to avoid the danger in front of her.

“If we had refused back then, would things have changed?” Hanjae muttered, wondering if he had the same thought as Min-hee.

“…He might have been more difficult?”

At Woojae’s response, the three of them couldn’t deny it and unknowingly nodded their heads.

Somehow, Seo Go-woon had become such a person to them.