Unlike when Raydel summoned the Plague Doctor and could sense that he had extremely low health points, he could feel that Cthulhu's health points were at its maximum, and he had no signs of being tired or weary at all. The prominent emotion it was having was annoyance which caused the tentacles to attack the zombies out of nowhere.
In the blink of an eye, the enemies that were closing on Jinny and the Plague Doctor disappeared, leaving behind only unidentifiable traces.
It happened so fast. All the bodies cut in half fell to the ground. Tentacles were covered in blood and pieces of flesh, making them look like they were dragged through the mud. Raydel felt disgusted when one of them tried to snuggle up against him again.
"...." He did not even know what that meant. It could be that Cthulhu wanted some compliments like the Plague Doctor, so Raydel patted the tentacles.
But they crushed his hand so hard that he felt the bones cracking!
[Cthulhu doesn't like being patted.]
Then what do you want?!
Raydel gritted his teeth because of the pain. He was so angry that he whispered, "stop fighting with the Plague Doctor now."
A message box suddenly appeared in front of him.
[Cthulhu is furious.]
[Cthulhu refuses your request.]
[Additional translation of Cthulhu's words.]
['How dare you, human.']
['You put that thing it my home.']
Raydel could feel Cthulhu's killing intent. In a brief second, he saw a man standing in front of him with some white ruins under a clear blue sky of the universe as the background. Cthulhu's realm, he thought before swallowing hard because he knew that the flickering figure of the man was grabbing his collar angrily.
"Can't you just share the house?" Raydel complained.
Raydel was kicked out of the realm instantly because the outraged tentacles were cutting all the remaining bodies of the zombies into pieces and letting them all rain down like a waterfall of blood. The pressure in the dungeon doubled. Raydel knew right away that Cthulhu had gone crazy already. The dungeon started to change its appearance like it was upgrading.
Everyone looked around in terror. Then, at the moment that Raydel was focusing on other things, the tentacles charged toward the Plague Doctor.
"You… TAKOYAKI!"
Raydel felt like he was trying to call for a dog that had run away. He squeezed the tentacles with his arms and tried to pull them back. It worked, and now the tentacles were all over him. Their suction cups obscenely sucked on his skin. But on second thought, it felt more as if they tried to kill him!
[Cthulhu wants to punish you.]
"Stop - it - now," Raydel forced himself to say it out loud.
Raydel found it hard to breathe. All of his energy was consumed so much to the point he could faint right then and there. The Plague Doctor began to fade away as well. He knew that he was almost at his limit now, and if he continued to keep the bosses here, both the Plague Doctor and Cthulhu would disappear, leaving Jinny vulnerable with no one to protect her. And he would have no one to fight Cadane.
Or do I need to sacrifice more organs to calm Cthulhu down? Raydel thought tensely. He definitely did not want to lose any more organs. It occurred to him at that moment how challenging it was to have an S-rank boss in possession, especially when he was just a beginner who had no way of controlling a boss of this high caliber.
Raydel could only stand there, letting Cthulhu sucking all of his energy out and killing him eventually.
He gritted his teeth and whispered to the tentacles.
"Enough! I'll do as I promised, okay? Let me dream of you tonight and talk about what to do with your house!"
The tentacles loosened its grips a little.
[Cthulhu is considering your offer.]
"You have what you want and so do I. Let's work together since your strength depends on my power. Now…." Raydel struggled to twist around, his arms aching. "I have reasons for summoning you."
He pointed at Cadane.
"Kill him!"
[Cthulhu is still considering your offer.]
[Additional translation of Cthulhu's words.]
['I'll kill you.']
Still, the tentacles let go of him and moved toward Cadane instead.
Cadane could not see the message boxes from Cthulhu, so he could only listen to what Raydel said to the boss. When he heard the order to kill him, he sprang up and stared at the tentacles radiating murderous aura.
What rank is it? What power does it have? B-rank or A-rank? he tried to think. But as he was trying to predict what the tentacles would do next, Raydel was the one attacking him!
Clang!
Sparkles exploded when their weapons clashed into each other. Raydel took a huge breath. He had already sent Cthulhu back in the inventory since he knew better than to let Cthulhu fight with Cadane and devour all his energy. He intended to defeat Cadane with his own hands to upgrade his dagger skills.
So, it was okay if he got hurt a little more.
Phluck!
Raydel kicked Cadane in the stomach with his last drop of remaining power. Cadane swore, giving Raydel the chance to keep attacking him into a corner.
When Cadane was cornered, he decided to use the power of his artifact.
"...!"
A gigantic wave of power shocked Raydel. The arena was suddenly filled with a blizzard making it impossible to see. Next thing he knew, he found himself getting stabbed in his belly by Cadane. The dagger penetrated through everything with its aggressive aura.
The moment he felt the sharpness piercing through, Raydel collapsed to the ground. The last remaining of his strength was sucked out.
Because the tentacles suddenly appeared and took the attack!
Shit!
Raydel did not intend to summon Cthulhu. He appeared out of his own will, but it still counted as a summon. Raydel fell down as his energy was completely used up. Even though he survived the dagger, the Plague Doctor was gone now that he had no power left. Jinny stood only with no protection.
Cadane smiled widely and dashed straight to Jinny. He must have planned this from the start!
He wants to hold her hostage?! Raydel tried to stand up. His heart was burning as he commanded the tentacles to follow the enemy, but they did not listen and only focused on crushing the dagger into millions of pieces. He had no way of catching up to Cadane mow and could only stand there watching his sister frozen in fear.
In the blink of an eye, Cadane closed in on Jinny and…
Schluck!
Raydel's eyes widened, and so did Cadane's.
Because it was Jinny who pushed the dagger into the center of his stomach.
Blood gushed out of the wound. Jinny trembled and sneaked a smirk for a moment as if she felt weirdly content to get the chance to do something. Her smirk disappeared a second later. She let go of the dagger and staggered away from Cadane who was struggling to breathe and ran to the other way.
"Raydel! He's running away!" Jinny yelled.
Raydel tried to follow Cadane, but it was too late. He vanished into thin air in no time.
The two of them noticed that the darkness surrounding began to fade away. The high-ranking hunters had arrived and exorcized the mutated dungeon.
Then, the notification sound started ringing nonstop in their ears.
[Successfully cleared the C-rank dungeon.]
[Start distributing the reward to 'Raydel Klein.']
Ding.
[Body Strength +2]
Ding.
[Boss' Language Skill +1]
Ding.
[Dagger Skill +3]
Jinny looked around trying to find where the sounds were coming from. "Dagger skill?" she whispered. The blizzard was getting weaker. The light showed them where the door to the outside world was. Jinny rushed in to help carry Raydel. They slowly walked out of the dungeon.
When they finally got out, the abandoned building returned. Raydel blinked before realizing that there was a crowd of hunters standing on the street, confused. They had just got out of the dungeon as well.
"The dungeon's gone now?"
"Did anybody find the boss room?"
"How many crystals did you get?"
Among the noisy chatting sounds, Jinny threw herself at Raydel and hugged him.
The two hugged in silence as Raydel patted his sister's head softly to calm her down. Jinny mumbled.
"How could my first dungeon turn out to be this dangerous? But I'm not giving up on this, I tell you."
Raydel smiled awkwardly. He did not know why his sister was so unlucky, but she was stronger than he gave her credit for.
Jinny hugged him tightly one more time and let him go.
She eagerly said, "Don't you know you look so cool when you fight? You really don't want to be a hunter?"
"I guess I have no choice now," Raydel said. "If I work as a hunter… I may be able to save up a lot of money and move to a country that doesn't have dungeons and towers."
"I know those countries with no towers and countries, you know. Like in Europe," Jinny said. "We should all move there together as a family. It's going to take a whole lot of money though."
Raydel sighed. He still had a long way to go before he reached the peaceful life of a side character that he desired.
"We should tell the high-ranking hunters about Cadane first," Raydel said.
But then, he saw someone walking toward him. Raydel was shocked since he never thought that the person would take the ride back here.
Even though he arrived too late!
"I already cleared the dungeon," Raydel said. "You didn't have to come back."
The protagonist looked at him with a straight face as if he wanted to say something. After a while, he opened his mouth.
"Ray."
"Huh?"
"The bus stops running now. I can't go home."
"..."
"You can stay at my place," Jinny offered. "You're my brother's friend, right? The one who named Han?"
Han nodded.
"I don't know if you ever met me, but I'm Jinny," she said and nudged Raydel with her elbow. "Don't worry about our parents. I'll talk to them."
Then, she gave Raydel a weird expression and a V sign as if to encourage him. Raydel furrowed his brows, confused. He only understood what she was trying to do when she stood on her tiptoes and whispered in his ears.
"This is the man that you've been trying to ask for forgiveness, right? I'll help you!"
"..."
You're talking about the old me. I have nothing to do with him now.
Raydel patted her shoulders, not knowing how to tell her that he no longer wanted Han to forgive him. Then, he noticed the high-ranking hunter that exorcized the dungeon, so he excused himself and walked toward the man. Raydel urgently told him about Cadane.
The hunter's expression kept changing throughout the whole time that Raydel explained the situation. He looked at Raydel's wrist. Even though Raydel tried to stop the bleeding and hide it from others, the scent of his blood probably still distracted the hunter.
"Do you have any other wounds?" he asked.
"Only this one." Raydel showed his hand to the hunter.
"This is just a first aid treatment. You still need to go to the hospital."
The healing magic was so warm that the exhausted Raydel wanted to sleep right in his standing position. The hunter bit his lips anxiously as he typed something on his phone.
"I told everyone to search for the man. Do you have time? You have to help me identify the corpses. We still have some time left before the dungeon completely disappears…"
The hunter stopped speaking and frowned.
"You."
"Yes?"
"The man named Cadane you talked about, was he dressed like an office worker? Black-haired and in his thirties?"
"Yes."
The hunter showed Raydel a picture on his phone.
"Someone found his corpse in the eastern part of the city."
Before this.
"Huff."
In the dark alley, Cadane exhaustedly sat down. His back pressed against the dirty wall.
He held the dagger buried deep in his stomach as his whole body trembled with pain. It was covered in so much blood that the nasty smell filled his nostrils.
Cadane gritted his teeth. On one hand, he wanted to pull it out. But on the other hand, he thought it would be best to wait till he got to the hospital.
He should have gone to the hospital, but fear stopped him.
Cadane could not stop thinking about Raydel and Jinny's faces. At first, he was interested in them and wanted to ask them to join him. But after Jinny stabbed him, he was so furious he wanted to go back to kill them both. He regretted not getting the chance to taste their flesh, and was fuming that the two survived.
They must have already started telling everyone about him murdering people.
He should have killed them before leaving.
Shit. Shit…
His shoulders trembled as he slowly took an object out of his pocket. It was a glass bottle with some liquid in it. It sparkled and distracted him for a moment. Cadane thought of the words of the person who gave him this several days ago.
'Drink it and your status will be hidden, and won't be recorded in the hunter system. The government won't know what you did to acquire the power.'
'How could this hide my status? Who are you?'
The mysterious person smiled at him.
'Afraid that the plan won't work? Don't be. I already saw the future. You'll survive.'
Survive… as a person who had to run away from the entire Hunter Guild!
Cadane drank the whole bottle down.
Suddenly, the fear and terror started to drive him insane. He felt cornered. It was as if there were eyes hidden behind everything around him, staring at him and noticing all the deeds he had done. They were in the walls, the sky, the air, and everywhere.
For him, the world had become something so unfamiliar he could not recognize. The sounds of water dripping, car racing, and rats running around finding something to eat in the garbage thundered in his ears. Cadane held his head with his two hands. Sweats broke out all over his face. The pain from the wound doubled like… his internal organs were twisting into a knot.
Hide in my room, Cadane thought, and then find the one who gave me this liquid.
He slowly stood up and froze when he saw the shadow of a person appearing at the entrance of the alley.
When he turned around, he saw the newcomer's face. It was someone he never thought he would meet here.
"Mr. Deather?"
Cadane hid the glass bottle.
Deather looked down at him. In the dim light of the alley, light shone on his girlish face. Eyes, nose, or lips, they all made him look like a woman. Even the body that was hidden in the shadow resembled the shape of a woman. At that split second, Cadane let himself believe that he might be able to run away if they fought. Deather was like a policeman while he was a runaway murderer.
Then, he remembered that Deather was a man who was respected by every hunter.
Cadane cursed silently. He had no weapons with him now. If he had to fight, he would need to rely on his power.
"Two days ago, you received a message from a mysterious java sparrow. It ordered you to prepare the dungeon and strengthen it for a hunter. That was me," Deather said.
Cadane did not reply. He had already guessed that the government was behind all this.
"But it seemed the hunter named Han didn't come to take the test," Deather said.
Cadane's sweat started to break out again. "He… I waited for a long time, but he didn't come. I'm sorry. I didn't know it was Mr. Deather who had ordered me. I… I tried to upgrade the dungeon…"
"That was all I told you to do. Then, why did you do something that wasn't in the agreement?"
"..."
"I told you to strengthen the dungeon to test the solo player. Why did you clear it and took the artifact? And you even tried to upgrade its power with an illegal shortcut?"
Deather tilted his head.
"I could smell human flesh even from here."
Cadane stood still. Deather took out his phone while his beautiful face remained the same.
"Your status still hasn't changed. You must have done something to hide yourself from the government system."
The man began taking steps toward Cadane and put on a transparent raincoat over his suit.
"Who helped you?" Deather asked. He had a weapon in one hand. Cadane noticed it and swore loudly. He had no choice now, so he put some pressure on the wound on his stomach and concentrated. He prepared to use the power of the artifact. He took the chance to be the first to strike and charged right at Deather!
Zah.
The rain was bucketing down on the roofs protecting this alley.
Deather inhaled the smoke from his cigarette and let it all out in one breath.
His hand was tucked in the pocket of his suit. He looked up at the jet-black sky and the roofs that continued to make the pitter-patter sounds with the rain. He held his phone in one hand with the speaker on, so he heard the sound of someone turning paper.
"I dealt with it already," Deather said. "Cadane had a glass bottle with fingerprints on it. I'll send it to you. It should help us learn who's behind this."
"I personally believe that he's just a murderer that waits for a chance to kill people. That's why he started killing people once he became a hunter. And he probably got the glass bottle from a black market," the other person said through the phone. "That might be all there is."
Deather inhaled the smoke from his cigarette one more time and said, "huh?"
"I don't think it's related to the 'cult' you talked about. Aren't they just a bunch of weird people coming together?"
"That's why we need to know if they're related."
"Fine, whatever. I'll do some tests for you. But what about the solo player? Did you test him? His status is always updated, but they're all just small progress. It doesn't make sense he's that strong. But I don't think it's the same case as the one you just killed. He didn't try to hide from the government."
"I think it's more like he's leveling up so fast that the system can't catch up," Deather said.
He let his mind wander around as he listened to the sound of the rain. He breathed out the smoke and looked at the puddle of blood next to his feet.
This country had to fight against dungeons and towers that kept appearing endlessly every day. What the government wanted was to track every hunter in the country and keep them in the system, so they could utilize them in their mission to defeat all dungeons and towers.
But the solo player named Han had never taken the hunter test. He did not have a rank and seemed to never use the hunter system from the government as well. He was like an abnormality that would appear once in a while and vanish again. There was almost no way of tracking him or finding out where he came from. How could he even live as a hunter but never used the government system?
Deather wanted to use this dungeon to track Han's status.
But he never imagined that the one who defeated Cadane and the dungeon would be someone else.
"Raydel Klein?" Deather whispered.
That guy also doesn't have a rank, he thought. A friend of the solo player?
He sighed.
When Deather told Raydel that his heart did not beat any faster the moment he saw him… he was lying.