Raydel gritted his teeth as soon as the voice stopped. He felt the immense force trying to get his hands off the legendary artifact.
At the same time, he noticed that the dark spots from the dungeon's curse started to disappear. Something was saving him from the disease. When Raydel looked up, he saw the Plague Doctor kneeling before him with its hands holding his, healing him.
He realized eventually that the tentacles were trying to take those hands off.
The pain pierced through his senses. When Raydel blinked again, the strange vision was gone, replaced by the shrieks of tons of monsters and the chaos in the dungeon. The area started to change. A structure made of limestones gradually appeared on top of the underground graveyard.
Raydel heard the faint whispers of waves afar.
The giant rats scattered around abruptly before scurrying back into the dungeon.
Amidst the confusion, a message box appeared.
[A new energy of unknown origin appeared.]
[The dungeon is evolving from an A to an S rank.]
Raydel's eyes widened. At first, he thought he was imagining things, but the changes in the arena became more apparent. The flow of energy increased so dramatically that the hunters could sense it. The goosebumps on their arms and the intense atmosphere told them that a new disaster was forming, but no one knew what it was. The rats might be the only ones here that knew what it was, so they ran away into the dungeon.
However, Raydel, who still had the question, 'where did you throw me?' echoing in his head, stood still. His mind wandered back to the incident from the other day.
The words he had said came back to him.
'You won't kill me because you want a friend, don't you?'
'...You wanted to learn more about the outside world since you've been sleeping for so long. If that's the case, I can be your tour guide.'
…
Raydel was stunned.
Don't tell me…
The boss from the hospital dungeon… followed him?
If it was true, was the boss angry because he threw the coin away… threw it away?! At that time, the dungeon in the hospital also evolved out of nowhere like this dungeon. Did Cthulhu make the dungeon evolve and become more dangerous because it was angry?
He had to find a way to make Cthulhu's anger disappear!
Raydel snapped his eyes at the hunters fighting over the legendary artifact from Cthulhu.
He had to take it back.
But how? He still needed to protect Sheryl.
As he was trying to find a solution, he heard screams of shock from the hunters. They all were flung away.
The person standing in the middle of the crowd was Han who just popped up there. The protagonist did not say anything. He kicked the hunter who jumped at him, not caring if he hit him too hard. Then, he grabbed a hunter's collar to punch him right in the face. The hunters around him were hit by Han all the same and sent lying down on the floor without even a chance to fight back.
Han's expression was cold and terrifying in a way that Raydel could not describe.
It seemed like he was about to stop, but he struck a hunter in the chin so hard that blood spilled out of his mouth. Han bent down to pick up the coin on the floor and walked over the hunters running away from him toward the train to give Raydel back the coin with a straight face.
"Here."
Raydel was confused as hell. He took the coin before meeting his eyes. "Uh… you…"
"Why didn't you call me for help when they hurt you?"
"..."
You saw it?
Sheryl coughed.
Raydel remembered who he was protecting. He turned to Sheryl and held her cheeks softly. He saw her slowly moved her gaze to him and felt encouraged to keep calling her name.
"Sheryl, don't sleep just yet," he said.
Sheryl looked at the sword buried deep in her body. She felt like an invisible hand slapped her in the face. She closed her eyes and frowned before taking a deep breath and opening her eyes again.
"Leave me here," she whispered.
"No," Raydel refused immediately and looked around the area. "Han, help me."
He took the legendary artifact in Sheryl's hand and held it close to the coin he just got back from Han. A sudden stream of energy flooded through his hands and startled him, but he tried not to react. Raydel touched Han's arms as he dragged her along with him.
"Be careful with her." Raydel placed his hands on Sheryl's back the whole time. "Here, this way."
As they got near the train, Raydel suddenly stopped walking. He smelled something that should not be here in this dungeon. It was the scent of seawater. The whole walls and ceilings became limestones piled over one another like infectious virus spreading everywhere. There were no monsters left in the area, and Raydel finally realized why they ran away.
It was like cats running away from water.
Raydel squinted his eyes and saw at the far end of the tunnel, waves of water slowly approached toward them. It was like the waves were swallowing the land. The realization froze Raydel to the core.
The arena was becoming the sea.
A structure made of limestones and the sea… Cthulhu was transforming this dungeon into its own dungeon.
"Hey, open the train door!"
"The water is rising! Open the door!"
The hunters were hysterically banging their fists on the door while the passengers inside stood watching with their eyes wide open in shock. Nobody knew what to do. One of the passengers tried to contact the train controller. The person's face was pale like he did not know how to explain the situation. Some of the hunters outside ran to the controller room and smashed the door with their fists, shouting for the controller to open the door repeatedly till it was the only sound echoing in the area.
The waves were advancing, permeating the air with the smell of seawater.
Suddenly, the train doors opened allowing the people outside to rush in in fear.
Raydel helped Han carry Sheryl into the train. The door shut behind them with a loud bang! At the same time, the waves flooded all over the arena, surrounding the train with greenish blue, making it look like they were under water. The place was left in the dark as if the sea had devoured all the light.
Silence got louder. Everyone looked at the waves that were submerging the arena, stunned, feeling like they were just tiny humans being caught up in a situation beyond their ability to understand.
"Can anybody heal?" Raydel shouted to the people inside the train. An old passenger raised her hands and rushed to sit beside Sheryl. Raydel moved aside to give way for her and Shane. The healing power of the passenger was not that strong but still enough to perform first-aid treatment.
"Where has all the water come from?"
"Is this one of the dungeon's traps?"
"But it said just now that the dungeon was evolving?"
The conversation between people around him reminded Raydel of something. He stood up and turned his back to the others before opening his hands to look at the two coins he was holding.
He needed to beg for Cthulhu's forgiveness.
"...!" Raydel frowned. He accidentally clenched his fist because he was in a hurry. But his right middle finger could bend just a little, and it caused a pain so sharp that tears started welling up in his eyes when he did so. He gritted his teeth and told himself to calm down and not let any cries out.
Raydel had sacrificed his right middle finger to the tentacle before, and it… literally broke it.
His hands trembled as a thought occurred in his mind.
I will sacrifice more. Please, just stop being angry!
But in fact, Raydel had no idea how to make Cthulhu forgive him. The waves flooding the arena seemed to become stronger. They ran around violently like a storm was breaking out. People cried in terror because cracks began to appear on the windows and the lights started flickering, leaving them in a long-darkened moment before coming back faintly.
At that moment, everyone heard a 'rumbling' sound.
The trains slowly tilted.
It leaned toward a direction as if something was flipping it over.
Raydel could feel the air vibrating with the crowd's fright. He had goosebumps all over when he suddenly realized he had no more time, so he begged the coin in his hands. Please, forgive me. I didn't mean to throw you away. His whole body shook in fear. He was afraid that it was his own mistake that killed everyone in this train.
In that hurry, Raydel repeated the same words in his head countless times. I'll sacrifice more.
Raydel did not even choose what he would sacrifice. He might die in just a few seconds. His eyes were fixed on the cracks on the windows that kept growing bigger. The shatter sounded like whispers compared to the thundering screams of waves crashing into the train. Raydel froze in his spot when he felt tentacles placing themselves on his face. His heart raced with anxiety as he did not know which organ it would take from him.
Raydel was frightened, but he persisted and looked at his own reflection in the window.
The tentacles pressed on the skin around his eyes.
They moved closer and…
The train stopped shaking.
It tilted back to the previous position. The wheels smashed into the ground with a loud thud. The lights stopped flickering. Even then, the intense atmosphere remained as everyone looked around in fear. They were shocked to see that the water level was decreasing. The water that had once submerged the train was disappearing at an incredible speed like the earth sucked them all in.
Everything went back to normal in the blink of an eye.
Everyone was confused. Some sat on the floor, relieved.
Raydel felt just like everyone else. The vision of tentacles was gone now. He looked at the coin in his hand before frowning when he saw that Cthulhu's coin and the legendary artifact from this dungeon were… merging and becoming one single coin.
And now, only Cthulhu's coin remained in his hand.
Wait, Raydel thought, it didn't just swallow up another legendary artifact, right?
"Brother," Minnie called him.
Raydel was startled. He did not know how long she had been standing behind him.
The girl wore a worried expression as she gazed at his broken right middle finger, then turned her eyes to his face.
"Your hair…," she said.
Raydel touched his hair.
"Why?"
"The color is weird."
"..."
Raydel looked at himself in the window and instantly noticed a lock of gray hair. He was baffled. Then, he lightly touched the hair and was shocked that it broke apart easily as if he had damaged his hair by bleaching to the point of no return.
Why did it choose my hair?
"The giant rats are back!"
As soon as the water was gone, the monster that had fled into the dungeon came pouring out. When they saw humans locking themselves up in the train, they attacked the windows, making loud banging noises. The giant rats kept clawing at the glass, trying to break in. Their huge bodies towered over the train and left the inside of it in darkness.
People were terrified by the situation in front of them that they completely forgot about the fight for the legendary artifact. Nobody knew what they should do next. They could not open the door to go out and fight the rats since they would rush in there first. But waiting inside till they finally broke the windows and were able to get in would result in the same outcome, so the only thing everyone could do now was to prepare their weapons. Their faces mirrored the immense worries they had for each banging and scratching sound.
Raydel gritted his teeth. Children and elders inside the train gathered in fear. The number of the giant rats was far greater than that of the people in the train, meaning that everyone could be attacked by the monsters. And since there were the monsters from an A-rank dungeon, they could kill ordinary, defenseless people with ease. Protecting them would be almost impossible as well.
This had not included the fact that Sheryl could not even stand by herself. If the giant rats successfully broke in, she would definitely die.
There has to be a way, he thought, maybe the high-ranking hunters have arrived, or…
A word suddenly popped up in his head. Raydel's mind drifted away for a moment, wrapping his fingers around the coin softly.
Or maybe there's something that can go out and kill the rats.
Every monster abruptly stopped moving before turning around. The people in the train were shocked when they saw the new guest. They cried out loud.
"The Plague Doctor?!"
"It was still alive?!"
The Plague Doctor stood silently among the giant rats, radiating a dangerous aura. The stillness of the Doctor gave many hunters goosebumps. Despair started to clutch on to their hearts. Each one of them glanced at one another, as if to ask what they should do. But they all knew that under the circumstances they were in, a mutated dungeon and a revived boss, they had less than one percent chance of survival.
They might all die here…
Everyone feebly raised their weapons, having lost their fighting spirits. Their eyes were locked on the Plague Doctor that started walking before raising the knife in its hands up in the air.
Then, it slashed at all the giant rats surrounding it instead!
"?!"
Suddenly, the Plague Doctor attacked its own monsters. It baffled several people that were watching. What they saw was not an illusion. The Doctor was killing the giant rats without thinking. Once the rats saw their own friends being slaughtered by the boss, they turned around and started attacking it. Some tried to bite the Doctor and clawed at it until blood gushed out!
Raydel looked down at the coin in his hand. It was gleaming like there was some connection between it and the current situation outside the train.
Don't tell me that I summoned the Plague Doctor?
"Someone used the legendary artifact!"
Of course, many people were confused at first, but they instantly realized that the Plague Doctor helped kill the rats because it was summoned by someone.
Summoned by someone who had claimed ownership over the dungeon's legendary artifact.
The others suddenly remembered the prize and immediately checked the time on their phones.
[3 minutes]
Only three minutes left to fight for the prize of one hundred thousand del.
All the hunters looked around, searching every corner and space like starving predators. Then, someone noticed the coin in Raydel's palm. That person pointed at Raydel before yelling.
"There!"
Raydel cursed. He turned around and sprinted away from the bloodthirsty hunters!
He ran into anyone that was in the way and heard a scream coming from behind. When he turned to see what was happening, he saw that Han just punched a hunter. Still, several of them got past him and were all staring at Raydel like a flock of zombies longing for living human flesh.
The Plague Doctor was fighting the rats outside while the hunters inside tried to take the legendary artifact from him.
Raydel could not believe how bad his luck was!
He banged his fists onto the door to the train control room, hoping that the controller would let him in and hide. But he didn't know if the person was too stressed or anything because he opened the doors of the whole train instead.
Or rather, a ball of energy blasted all the windows and doors of the train away!
A blinding light exploded accompanied by a booming sound that shook the whole area. Raydel closed his eyes tightly and raised his arms to cover his face. The other hunters did the same. Everyone ducked down to avoid the broken glasses and fine stones that were blown inside. The smell of burning pervaded the air. Then, a pure, pleasant aroma of flowers that brought together with it a strange warmth.
Raydel opened his eyes and saw a gentle light shone into the dungeon. The light destroyed the giant rats trying to run away but failed. Their bodies were burnt down and disintegrated into nothing.
The Plague Doctor also disappeared.
Raydel knew right away what that power was.
The power of exorcism.
The high-ranking hunters had arrived.
This should be good news that cleared Raydel out of his worries, but since the fight for the prize had not ended yet, the high ranks might join the other hunters and hunt after him. Was this the true meaning of the Hunter Attraction skill? But he could not lose the legendary artifact no matter what it took because they merged… because it was already swallowed by Cthulhu's coin. And if he threw the coin away again or let it be taken away…
Cthulhu might get angry, making the dungeon go so crazy that it killed everyone.
He must get out of here!
Raydel recalled the time when Han got into the dungeon.
He could use the way that the protagonist broke into as an escape route!
Making up his mind that he would escape through that way or, at least, hide until the three-minute time limit was up, he dodged the hunters trying to seize him and dashed out of the train. Rocks and little million pieces of broken glass scattered around on the ground. From the other end of the tunnel a shadow was walking toward Raydel. His heart beat faster in fear, so he turned around to look for the dungeon's entrance.
The entrance was there!
Raydel was about to run, but a hand grabbed his shoulder and managed to pull him backward with one single try. Raydel staggered back and fell against the other person's chest.
An aroma that felt so misplaced seeped through the air and Raydel's senses. It was clearly the perfume of a man who should not be here in this dungeon.
Raydel turned to look at the person behind him and saw a tall man in a suit.
He plainly said, "hand me the legendary artifact."
Raydel's eyes opened wide.
No way.
Why did the last boss appear so early?