chapter 184

Chapter 184

The sun no longer rose in the dungeon.

“Will it stay like this?”

“That will depend on what the Tree of Life thinks.”

“That’s true.”

The hunters wandered around near Honey, who had grown to about five meters.

“Wow, it’s warm...”

“It suddenly cooled down, so now it’s cold.”

“He ate all that heat and it’s only warm—does that make sense?”

“If it doesn’t make sense, who cares. If it’s warm, that’s enough.”

“You’re right...”

Perhaps because his body had grown heavier, Honey didn’t fly.

“Kung.”

“Let’s loosen up when we get home.”

“Kungkungkung...”

“If you do it here, it’ll all be for nothing.”

“Kungkungkungkungkung...”

“Want a snack?”

“Guruk.”

After Gio put a whole sack of snacks into Honey’s mouth, Kang Seodam approached him.

“Hunter Seo Gio.”

“Ah, Priest.”

“Thank you for helping with this matter.”

“It was something that had to be done.”

“Honey’s help was great too...”

Kang Seodam, who had been about to say something more, closed his mouth.

“...”

Soon, he continued.

“...It’s only because we feel the gap from the initial temperature, but this level of climate now is extremely mild. If you compare it to Earth’s seasons, you could call it spring.”

“Has it stabilized a lot?”

“Just in case, we’re calling in those who can still act and who specialize in magic to dig up the ground, but it doesn’t seem there’s been any particular result yet. Even if we don’t pump up groundwater, with the situation as it is now... it doesn’t seem like there will be a big problem.”

“I see.”

Gio asked,

“Shall we check those small trees now?”

“Yes, that’s why I’m gathering the people who will accompany us.”

“I would like to go with you.”

“If you do so, that would be something to be grateful for.”

And so, a small number of hunters moved to where the pale purple trees were.

Even after all that commotion, the small tree remained without a single scratch. In the dark night, the tree was giving off a faint light, and Yeongwon, who carefully examined the delicate tree, said,

“Even though the climate has changed a lot, the tree’s temperature hasn’t changed much.”

“It seems the heat has drained more than before, but from what I see, that’s true.”

Nodding, Kang Seodam turned toward Sanarae.

“Do you have any advice to give?”

“Thanks so much for relying on me.”

“I’m well aware that’s sarcasm.”

“I don’t really have much to say either... mm, it smells.”

“A smell?”

“Before the weather turned cool, it smelled like a corpse.”

“Then we should definitely say there’s been a change.”

It was then.

“Meow.”

From Gio’s shadow, Dana cried.

“Meow.”

“...”

“Meow...”

At Dana’s cry, the tree’s branches trembled faintly. No matter how tired they were, the hunters weren’t the type to miss that kind of movement. At the unknown phenomenon, a hunter from Eununwol wore a tense expression.

“...D-don’t tell me this is a monster too...?”

“Since it was once a human child who turned into a tree, it isn’t impossible.”

“Then shouldn’t we prepare?”

And before any more words could be exchanged, the tree flapped its branches.

Splurt.

“...”

Flap, flapflap.

“...?”

Splurt...

The hunters stared blankly at the tree, wriggling and trying to crawl out of the ground. The tree thrashed about like a puppy that had fallen into a swamp. About ten minutes passed like that.

Unable to endure this bizarre silence, one hunter spoke up.

“...S-should we... help...?”

“...Helping a monster doesn’t make sense.”

“In the first place, we don’t even know if that’s a monster...”

In a dungeon, not everything that moved was a monster. Most dungeons really did have only monsters, but some also had ordinary trees or wild animals.

But it was hard to say that a tree moving this much wasn’t a monster. Unless it was an ordinary creature that had lived here even before this dimension became a dungeon...

“...”

“...But it looks weak.”

“...We’ve gotten pretty weak too. There are plenty of cases where people made contact with a monster that looked weak and got turned on instead.”

“But isn’t it a meaningless worry to wait until it comes out like this?”

“Well, if we’re going to just sit and watch something until it comes out...”

“Let’s just pull it out. Since it’s come to this.”

“It doesn’t look that aggressively hostile toward humans either.”

Monsters did hate and threaten humans, but there were big individual differences. In the end, even while wearing unsure expressions, the hunters carefully pulled the wriggling, flapping tree out of the ground.

And the hunters realized something.

“...! A seal?”

Someone shook his head.

“It has a long neck and four feet. And it’s much broader.”

“Then what do you usually call a creature like that?”

“I feel like I saw a similar monster in some dungeon. Well... a water dragon?”

“If you want to be precise... isn’t it a plesiosaur?”

One hunter asked as if dumbfounded,

“Are you naming a dinosaur right now?”

“Yes, well, there was a dinosaur said to have lived in the water on old Earth.”

“That’s not what I’m asking—no, how do you even know that?”

“My son likes them...”

“Ah...”

Even though this was an era when countless records had been erased after the Great Catastrophe, records related to dinosaurs remained. Even now, among some children, there were many who memorized dinosaur names by heart.

“Does that dinosaur called a plesiosaur look like this?”

“Yes. The neck is long, the feet are four, it’s flat like a plank, and it has a tail too.”

“I wondered why it was the only one that wasn’t a beast—so it was a water dragon.”

“It was camouflaging itself in the form of a tree, so we didn’t recognize it.”

A water dragon trapped in a dungeon filled with the sun’s horrific heat. You could tell how much Life wanted to inflict suffering on the tree. It was like hanging a fish on a drying rack.

“When it was stuck in the ground, it looked just like a tree.”

Now that it was outside the ground, it just looked like a water dragon with wisteria blossoms hanging all over it.

The small pale purple water dragon tapped its tail and crawled along. Since there was no particular killing intent or hostility, they watched quietly, and it approached Seo Gio. It cried with a short sound.

“Mu.”

A hunter covered their mouth.

“Cute.”

“It’s a monster.”

“There are lots of cute monsters.”

“That kind of preference exists too.”

A world of individualism. Hunters readily respected even a comrade’s preferences.

As if it had little interest in the hunters’ murmuring, the thing that had become the shape of a water dragon with trees tangled around it raised the part that seemed to be its head and poked at Gio’s waist over and over. Watching closely, Gio lifted his pouch.

“Muu.”

“Are you hungry?”

“Mu!”

“How admirable.”

Hunter Sanarae asked,

“If it’s hungry, does it not matter even if it’s a monster?”

“If it eats well, it’s a pleasant sight.”

“Mmm... you really have clear tastes.”

One of the hunters said as if surprised,

“That monster seems to like Hunter Seo Gio.”

“Is it because he’s a tamer...?”

“No, until it’s tamed, a tamer or not, you’re just an enemy.”

“Then why is it acting like that toward Hunter Seo Gio?”

Since it looked like a baby beast begging its parent for food, people began to murmur, and someone spoke in a guessing tone.

“Isn’t it already tamed?”

“What could he have done...?”

“Just with affection and love...”

“...Does anyone here know how taming works?”

But there was no way anyone would know about that precious tamer’s technique. In the first place, they would never tell others their valuable secrets. Above all, each tamer’s method was wildly different.

In the end, the hunters convinced themselves.

‘Monsters have eyes too, I guess.’

‘Does he smell good or something? Like pheromones...’

‘He might have a skill that lowers monsters’ wariness.’

‘Or an ability of a monster he already tamed? It’s not like he would’ve shown us everything.’

Basically, it had become etiquette in this world not to pry too deeply into others. An era where you could only imagine what you couldn’t casually ask. The hunters let it go with, “I guess that’s just how it is.”

If there had been another tamer here, they would have known just how ridiculous this situation was, but the odds were low. That was the kind of society it was, where idolization and assumptions were taken for granted.

“What should I do, the jerky I brought is all I have...”

At Gio’s words, the hunters were surprised.

“Hunter Seo Gio, you brought jerky too? That muffin wasn’t the end of it?”

“Muffin? What are you talking about? What I received was jelly.”

“...Wait, I got chocolate. Just how many snacks did you bring?”

At that, Sanarae thought,

‘They’d stop making a fuss if they saw him pull out a man-sized pot from subspace.’

As Seo Gio, who had been rubbing the water dragon that barely reached his waist like he was squishing a dog’s cheek, tilted his head, there were hunters who turned their gaze with him, and hunters who had already noticed something long ago.

And soon, water gushed out.

“...”

“...”

“...Water.”

A quick-witted hunter summarized the situation.

“Looks like it was blocking a water vein.”

The hunter who said that picked up a communicator. It was to stop the mages who were sweating blood while digging the ground in search of possible groundwater.

The hunters exchanged looks, dumbfounded.

“There really was groundwater.”

“But is it okay for it to keep coming out like that...? What’s the principle?”

“Isn’t the speed a bit fast?”

Around then, Kang Seodam, who had received contact from the other side, said,

“Other teams are making similar reports as well. There are still trees that can’t get out of the ground and are thrashing, and trees that have already come out, but... they say water is gushing there too.”

“At this rate, won’t this dungeon get flooded?”

“It doesn’t seem it will be completely flooded. We don’t know exactly how much groundwater was sleeping, but even if you pierce an Earth water vein once, the world doesn’t get submerged.”

“That’s true, but...”

Tap, tap...

Yeongwon raised a hand.

“It’s raining.”

“What?! Ah, wait, where do we take cover—!”

“It’s fine.”

Yeongwon, stroking the raindrops on his hand, continued.

“Because it doesn’t hurt anymore.”

The painful rain that could drive people mad just by touching them was gone. Unlike before, it wasn’t a downpour harsh enough to hurt the skin, but a fine drizzling rain that fell carefully, like morning dew.

At that moment, the hunters could confirm their system’s guidance.

“...Cleared...”

“...It’s been cleared.”

“P-priest. Right now...!”

“It cleared right now!!”

‘Giant wisteria water dragon’ falls into a long sleep

Dungeon: ‘The Four-Legged Rainforest Underground’ has been cleared

Please check the receipt rewards

“We’re off work now!!”

“A wise decision.”

Kang Seodam nodded.

“Let’s go back.”

It was time to return.

* * *

“Mr. Sanarae.”

“Hm?”

“I have something I’m curious about.”

“Ah-ha, what might that be?”

“What are receipt rewards?”

“Receipt rewards...”

Sanarae, looking at Gio, grinned and said,

“You can think of it as a gift the system gives you.”

“What kind of gift is it?”

“When you clear a dungeon, the system judges how much you contributed to that clear and sends you a gift accordingly.”

“How do you receive the gift?”

“Usually you can receive it through the system. It gets delivered to your bound subspace...”

“How do you do that?”

“Why on earth are you asking that?”

“It seems convenient.”

“...Hmmm...”

“...”

“...”

Silently, a translucent system floated between them. Sanarae’s pupils reflexively checked his notification window.

Reward 지급

From 서¿지■

A gift from Seo Gio

: Golden-Step Sheep Jerky

“You know I didn’t see anything just now, right?”

“Isn’t it a message that came for you to see?”

“I said I didn’t see it. Seriously, why are you doing this to me?”

“Do you not like jerky very much?”

Giovanni whispered.

“I asked because I have received nothing from the system.”

“...”

First, if you were a hunter, it was impossible not to know about “receipt rewards.” That was extremely ordinary common sense that you learned by default if you lived in human society.

Second, no human could learn the system’s technology simply because it “seemed convenient.” Like how you can’t make Earth just because it looks cool.

Third, there was no reason someone with “Hunter Seo Gio’s” level of contribution wouldn’t receive a clear reward. Unless he didn’t have a system at all, or used a different type of system.

“...”

And there was no need to tell that to Sanarae either...

“Everyone’s gone out.”

“...Yeah.”

“Then let’s return too.”

“Shall we?”

Sanarae decided to just shut up and smile.

After living, he’d found there was no wiser answer than that.

(To be continued in the next episode)