Today's meme is here. [ ]
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Just as he began wondering like that….
He discovered the boss and automatically accepted that this dungeon simply had to be this big.
'If a monster like that gets outside….'
His eyes spotted the lone humanoid monster standing still at the far end of the boss room. Jin's eyes began gleaming brightly like a young kid who got his hands on a new toy he wanted so much as a gift.
'The high orgs monster.'
He heard a few things about this type of monster before, but this would be his first time looking at one. Because a orgs monster's corpse was so huge, it was practically impossible to retrieve it in time, so most people would hardly ever get to see one outside of dungeon breaks.
Such a creature was right over there.
'That thing's are strong.'
Just how much experience points would he earn by hunting those guys down? By working his a*s off inside the Demon's Castle, he levelled up 23 times in a week. But, he could kill one boss and raise his level to 123.
'No, I shouldn't be doing this at least not now'
Even though he was telling himself he shouldn't, both the 'Baruka's Dagger' and the 'Knight Killer' were summoned into his hands already. More importantly, his expression wasn't of someone stuck in a dilemma, wondering whether he should do something or not.
Should I just go ahead and do this thing?
A soft but excited grin formed on his lips.
However….
While Jin stood there deliberating with a smile on his face, a certain woman's incredibly sharp voice flew at him from his behind the person he was truly appreciate to meet.
"What do you think you're doing?"
Right then, Jin felt his heart beats fast up.
'When did she….?'
He was paying too much attention to the boss and failed to notice that someone had come closer.
The Hunters Guild had purchased the raid permit for his particular dungeon, so naturally, the boss of this place was also a part of their investment.
And, if the boss was killed off, the Gate would close down. The potential losses the Hunters Guild might incur would be a lot, then.
Meanwhile, the owner of the voice had walked closer.
"I asked you what you were doing."
Jin formed an smile and turned around to face her.
"Nothing I was just wondering around and got lost and ended up here."
"You got lost?!"
She sounded flabbergasted not believing what Jin said. Only then did Jin confirm who the owner of the voice was.
'Yes it was her the only woman who could cause such emotions in his heart after Esdeath of course….?'
It was none other than the rank S Hunter Cha Hae-In. As Cha Hae-In slowly closed the distance, she carefully scanned both of Jin's hands.
'I definitely saw him holding weapons just now, though?'
Was she mistaken?
Whatever the case might have been, they had disappeared without a trace.
Cha Hae-In's gaze scanned the entirety of Jin, up and down.
'A hard hat and a worker's overall….. Is he from our mining team?'
She honestly didn't believe him about getting lost here. She didn't know how he got this far, but well, the boss room was a very dangerous place to hang around.
Discovering the 'reason' was secondary. For now, Cha Hae-In figured that the priority should be on helping this man to leave this place.
"That chamber is where the boss is."
Cha Hae-In covered her nose with her handkerchief as usual and stood before Jin.
"Please exit from the dungeon as soon as possible. If you manage to attract its aggro, people inside this dungeon could all die."
"Ah. My mistake."
It seemed that his acting worked. Jin formed a satisfied expression and slowly walked past Cha Hae-In. It was then.
'….Uh?'
Cha Hae-In's head snapped towards Jin.
Something impossible just happened.
Cha Hae-In's eyes widened, her curiosity piqued beyond measure. In the world of Hunters, where power was the ultimate allure, Sung Jin had something that set him apart. It wasn't just his strength that she can't even sense it; it was something else, something that had caught her attention.
Without fully realizing it, she found herself calling out to him, her voice tinged with both wonder and disbelief.
"Excuse me. Wait!"
Jin turned to her, his attention fully on her now. His response was calm and collected, as if he had been waiting for this very moment.
"Yes?"
"Can you take a look at me for a sec?"
A grin tugged at the corner of his lips, a subtle anticipation in his eyes. It wasn't the typical response to a powerful Hunter, where people often sought their strength. No, this time, it was different. He wanted her to come closer, to get closer to him. And much to his satisfaction, Cha Hae-In was already standing right in front of him.
"What… what's the matter?" Jin inquired, his grin growing a touch wider. But Cha Hae-In didn't answer with words. Instead, she did something unexpected.
She reached out and took in a deep breath of air near him. She had already put away the handkerchief covering her nose.
Jin couldn't help but feel a sense of excitement. He knew what she was doing, and his thoughts started to race. His imagination ran wild with possibilities, his mind conjuring scenarios that were anything but innocent. However, the state of confusion that Cha Hae-In was going through at that moment was several times greater than his own thoughts.
'There is no…. stink coming from him.'
Her words struck like lightning. This was her first time meeting another person who didn't have that familiar stench of monsters clinging to them. It was her first time encountering someone who didn't emanate that repugnant odor of stink.
For Cha Hae-In, this revelation was nothing short of life-changing. Her surprised eyes remained fixed on Jin, a question mark floating above his head in response to her unspoken inquiry.
"Is there some kind of a problem?"
"You… Are you a Hunter for real?"
In lieu of words, Jin simply reached for his Hunter license hanging around his neck and presented it to her. Cha Hae-In took the license, her gaze darting between Jin's face and the ID photo.
'Rank E…. Sung Jin-Woo….'
Her reaction, though not overly dramatic, hinted at a deeper curiosity. It was almost as if she had stumbled upon a rare and fascinating specimen in the wild. But what struck Jin as odd was her lack of depth in reaction. He couldn't help but wonder if he possessed some kind of harem protagonist aura, although the thought was quickly dismissed. After all, he wasn't surrounded by women, and his relationship with Esdeath was a unique case.
But then, he noticed something else. He could hear the rapid beats of Cha Hae-In's heart, feel the warmth radiating from her body as she inched closer to him. A bizarre feeling washed over him, and his thoughts took an unexpected turn.
Did he have some kind of harem halo around him?
But just as quickly as that thought crossed his mind, he dismissed it. It didn't make sense, and there were no signs of such a scenario unfolding.
What truly baffled him, however, was the fact that Cha Hae-In couldn't pick up any type of smell coming from him. In fact, there was a pleasant aroma gently wafting from his being, an odor unlike anything she had encountered before. It was as if her senses were awakening to a new and intriguing reality.
As if driven by an irresistible urge, Cha Hae-In inched even closer, her body moving of its own accord. Jin couldn't help but extract his license from her hand, breaking the spell of curiosity that had held her in place.
"Can I go now?"
She seemed to snap out of her reverie, realizing that there was no reason to detain him any longer. But as he turned to leave, her gaze lingered on him, her mind still processing the enigma that was Sung Jin-Woo.
"Uhm, well, I…."
Cha Hae-In didn't finish her sentence. Instead, she let him go, but her thoughts remained tangled in the web of mysteries surrounding this particular Hunter. For her, it was a first—being able to breathe freely around someone. The encounter had left her with a feeling she couldn't quite explain, a sense of wonder and intrigue that had ignited a spark within her heart.
Being a lower Cha does not seem to have any friends so now she was fully socially awkward and didn't. She was also very embarrassed and almost instantly lost her composure. So it was very hard for her to mutter a single word in her defense.
When she looked down and saw her body was particularly touching his body a huge blush appeared on her cheeks as she backed down.
"…I.. it..It's nothing. Please be careful on your way out. This dungeon is rather large, you see." After falling to say a simple word she squished her hand and said the whole like in a single breath.
"Ah, of course."
Jin lightly nodded his head and turned towards the location of the mining operation. His back soon disappeared around the corner of the cavern.
However, Cha Hae-In's lingering gaze didn't shift away from the path Jin had walked down on.
'He smelled really nice. It was such a amazing smell'
***
Hunters of the mining team were returning to the mining operations area one by one after finishing their lunch.
Foreman Bae was walking with a toothpick stuck in between his teeth. Once he saw Jin appearing from the deeper parts of the dungeon, though, he flinched greatly in shock.
"Uh? Huh?? Mister Sung, why are you coming from there??"
"Oh, that…."
Jin sneakily shifted his gaze over in the direction of the boss.
Jin's gaze returned to Foreman Bae.
"I got lost while searching for the bathroom, actually."
"Aigoo! You need to be more careful, young man. Interiors of these dungeons all look the same, so if you get lost inside, it won't be easy finding your way around! But still, how did you find your way back to here?"
"Oh, I ran into Cha Hae-In Hunter-nim on my way back, so…."
"Ahh, Cha Hunter-nim, was it? She's probably gone to stand guard by the boss room just in case the boss decides to take a stroll. That lady also worries a lot, maybe as much as you, Mister Sung."
Foreman Bae guffawed vigorously. It seemed that Ji being worried about the boss not too long ago had left a deep impression in his mind.
Jin could only smile wryly.
'The foreman can laugh like this only because he has no idea how terrifying the boss actually is.'
This was the difference between the Hunters doing these sorts of jobs, and the Hunters working in the assault team. Two lived in their own different worlds having no idea of how the other party works.
Cha Hae-In understood very well how dangerous and scary an existence the monsters could be, so she was just being meticulous in those areas that no one else was paying much attention to.
' What the hell was that, with that expressionless face of hers and all.'
If the boss decided to come out of the boss room, the assault team wouldn't be the ones in danger. No, it would be the workers doing their job, as the raid team would be taking a break outside the dungeon.
And she was sacrificing the allure of sweet rest to stand guard in front of the boss room, just for the sake of total strangers.
'…..She's had a nice and soft side to being a woman.'
That was Jin's honest impression of Cha Hae-In.
"Mister Sung? You know you are very lucky to meet the young woman? And showed you the way"
"Why?"
"Oh, that? Well, it's cuz Hunter Cha is a bit peculiar, you see."
"A bit peculiar?"
"Hunter Cha can supposedly smell a kind of body odour coming from other Hunters. And I hear she finds them pretty horrible."
"She can smell other Hunters?!"
"I heard something or other about her special constitutions and stuff."
Her special constitutions,
Jin also possessed something similar to that – his excellent senses.
"Well, wouldn't you agree that she is peculiar?"
Perhaps he enjoyed the sight of Jin focusing on his words more than he should, because Foreman Bae continued on with his explanations without any prompt from the youth.
"I heard that she finds it really hard to breathe near other Hunters and even normal people because of the stink."
"…"
What? What the heck?
This wasn't supposed to happen, how come this happened it was only supposed to be with hunters.
After some thoughts Jin concluded that it was due to this her reaction was gone to such extreme lengths.
'….That's why she was so shocked and even more shocked after she got to know I was a hunter Hunter.'
Like other Hunters and even normal people, he didn't smell at all?
Back in the Red Gate, the leader of the White Phantoms said something similar.
– Every one of us can hear a certain voice repeating itself in our heads. It tells us to kill humans. However, I can't hear that voice when I'm looking at you.
This is a bit similar in context with what that creature told him, He didn't have the Hunter-specific stink, and they couldn't hear the voice telling them to kill him.
'Just because, I'm the Player…..'
A separate existence from all the planes of existence this would especially be true when it's my soul that comes from far outside of the multiverse.
A unique existence who had received the advantages of the Gamer.
This is the 'Player'
The question of his own identity didn't rise up in Jin's head, and only questions he had were who was the being that modified the system and sent him here.
But he also knew he wasn't strong enough to know that, nor will he be even after a century later, but one thing was fixed one day he will definitely find out.
Seeing himself losing in thoughts Jin he shook his head eventually.
'This isn't a problem I can figure out now, anyway.'
Jin emptied his mind. Problems that couldn't be solved by thinking too hard would only tire him out if he continued to dwell on it.
Crack! Kwack!
It was then, he heard his not long colleagues getting back to work. So, Jin also lifted the pickaxe.
What would he have done if Cha Hae-In didn't show up in time?
He couldn't help but wonder.