Doing Good Deeds Will Bring Blessings¿

Fear comes from what cannot be understood. The fear Choi Miyeon was experiencing now clearly stemmed from that lack of understanding. She knew something threatening was right in front of her, yet she couldn’t grasp what it was. The sensation that the enemy could swallow her whole at any moment made her want to flee immediately, but she was so overwhelmed by that feeling that she couldn’t move.

“Ugh… uuuuh…!”

She was definitely breathing, yet it didn’t feel like she was. Though her eyes were open, she couldn’t understand what she was seeing. Though she was hearing something, she couldn’t understand what kind of sound it was. She didn’t even know what she herself was saying. For a fleeting moment, it felt like she heard someone screaming but she wasn’t sure. All that reached her was vague, indistinct mumbling.

“■■… ■ ■■ is…”

Some time passed, and though she didn’t know why she had ended up in that state, awakening from it happened in an instant.

“Choi Miyeon,” a clear voice snapped Choi Miyeon’s consciousness back into place.

“Y-yes?” Answering reflexively, Choi Miyeon realized that her entire body was soaked in cold sweat. Wh-what… what just happened?

It felt as though she had woken up from an intense nightmare. The face of the girl standing in front of her felt extremely unfamiliar almost uncanny. Who was she again?

Choi Miyeon brought the name to her lips. “Ah… Hunter Jeong Daon.” Strangely enough, the moment she spoke the name, the tension drained from her entire body at once.

At some point she didn’t know when, a small black cat bumped its face against her leg. “Myak!” The warmth immediately calmed her heart.

Jeong Daon lifted the corner of her mouth slightly. “There’s no need to be afraid. Fear is nothing more than a hallucination that can be thoroughly dismantled through human understanding.”

“A hallucination…?”

“Yes. First, recognize the nature of the fear. Then understand it. Only then can humans gain control over the phenomenon through comprehension. That’s the orthodox theory behind dispelling fear-based illusion magic. It’s good to remember.”

“Ah…”

“Of course, that man will never escape his own fear again.”

Only then did Choi Miyeon notice an old man collapsed as though unconscious at Jeong Daon’s feet. It was Lee Manbok.

No, could this really be described as simply “collapsed”?

“H-huuugh! N-no! I can never go back to that time!” His eyes were rolled back, foam bubbling from his mouth as his body convulsed. He was clearly unconscious, yet his body seemed to be writhing in agony on its own.

Jeong Daon spoke quietly. “He’ll be trapped in an eternal nightmare. Confined to a period of his life he never wants to return to, his body will continue to age until it finally reaches death. And then, forgotten by everyone, he’ll be buried in this dungeon forever.”

“Then…”

“In my opinion, this alone is already sufficient.” As she said this, Jeong Daon handed a dagger to Choi Miyeon. “I’ll give you a choice as well.”

With trembling hands, Choi Miyeon accepted the dagger.

“This is the dagger Lee Arin gave me.”

Lee Arin, a name she had known for a very long time, yet now it felt strangely unfamiliar.

“If you wish, you can finish it yourself.”

Jeong Daon’s intention in handing over the dagger Lee Arin had given her was unmistakable.

“I… I…” Choi Miyeon stared fixedly at the sharp dagger clutched in her hand.

“It’s okay.”

A cold hand settled on Choi Miyeon’s shoulder. She slowly lifted her head and looked at Jeong Daon.

“No one will know what happened inside this dungeon.”

Despite the coldness of the hand, the words sounded almost gentle, regardless of what they were truly urging her to do.

Choi Miyeon swallowed hard once and asked Jeong Daon, “Um… may I ask just one thing?” For a moment, she thought she saw a faint glimmer of curiosity flicker within Jeong Daon’s inorganic, emotionless eyes. Though she didn’t know why.

“Go ahead.”

There were countless things she wanted to ask: why their escape from the dungeon had been delayed, where everyone else had gone, aside from Lee Manbok, and above all, what exactly this girl called Jeong Daon was. But right now, there was something else that mattered more to Choi Miyeon.

“What did Lee Arin say before she died?”

In truth, instead of controlling the desert whale and going to kill Lee Manbok, Choi Miyeon could have stayed by Lee Arin’s side. She knew that no amount of first aid would give Lee Arin much time left. But she didn’t do that. Perhaps she was afraid that if she stayed, Lee Arin, upon seeing her, might say something resentful. Or perhaps she was afraid that she herself would end up saying something resentful to Lee Arin. Even so, the reason she now found herself curious about Lee Arin’s final words was likely this. Before committing the taboo of murder, she needed a more decisive push.

Jeong Daon opened her mouth. “She said she was happy she could die after seeing that her revenge had succeeded.”

“…I see.”

Yes. It felt like a very Lee Arin–like final remark. Those words became Choi Miyeon’s resolve.

She was still indecisive, cowardly, and afraid, but at the very least, she still had the strength to make real what someone had believed in until the very moment of their death.

Choi Miyeon raised the sword…

Stab!

…and blood spread across the sand.

The system warns user “Jeong Daon” never to do something like this again.

That damned collective intelligence sure knows how to whine.

“Mew.”

“Attack?”

Perhaps sensing my foul mood, Leo who had been busily shaking sand off his paws beside me extended his claws. Looks like going back to his original body size once made him think he’d recovered his former strength.

“Not a chance.”

Even if the temporary removal of his stat cap came from absorbing the desert whale’s mana, it would still be a long time before Leo truly regained his power.

Error corrected.

Time remaining until dungeon exit: 00:03:29

Choi Miyeon and a few lucky cultists who survived had already escaped the dungeon. Now, I was the only living human left inside. All that spread before my eyes was an endless desert, like a vast ocean with no visible end. The dead had already been buried beneath the sand, erased without a trace.

“Well, still not a bad experience.”

“Meow?”

“Nonsense?”

“Nonsense, my ass.”

I tried to smack Leo, but failed. Sure, some bothersome things had happened, but looking purely at the results, I’d gained more than I’d lost.

First of all, my stats had increased. It seemed society had judged that when an ordinary civilian faces a cult leader who even abuses public authority at will, private revenge is the only option and had therefore evaluated my actions as “satisfying.”

Jeong Daon (Normal)

Potential Ability Rating: S-rank

Stamina: LV. 20 (No cap)

Strength: LV. 16 (No cap)

Mana: LV. 35 (No cap)

Overall Level: LV. 21 → 23

Recommended Dungeons: C–D rank

The increase was significant. Less than a month after taking the Supernatural Test, I’d reached stats higher than most low-tier Hunters a very encouraging outcome. Of course, in my case, I could produce bursts of power through incantation magic regardless of stats, but incantation magic couldn’t be used at all times. Just in case, it was necessary to keep raising my base specs.

And then there was one more thing: I’d found yet another loophole in that trash-tier quest “Doing Good Deeds Will Bring Blessings¿”

System Guide: Murder is an unethical act that goes against the perceptions of the majority of society’s members.

That guide popped up, but in practice I hadn’t been punished. I’d only helped those who intended to kill Lee Manbok. In other words, it was now proven that as long as I didn’t directly dirty my own hands, I could largely avoid the system’s penalties.

System warning to User “Jeong Daon”.

System warning to User “Jeong Daon”.

"..."

Of course, that didn’t mean there was anything I could do about the system being thoroughly pissed off. Honestly, part of me wanted to ignore it entirely, angry or not but…

There’s no benefit in becoming completely hostile with the system.

After all, my goal was to live as long and peacefully as possible as the human Jeong Daon, together with Jeong Dajeong. So in the end, I opened my mouth to placate the system. “Looking at the outcome, in the end you—no, we, humanity, didn’t really lose anything. Cult leaders like that are a social evil…”

The system is searching for the cause of the intentional system error.

The system has detected “Destroyer of Worlds”.

Ah. So that was the problem.

Normally, once the desert whale, the original boss monster of this dungeon, was defeated, all the humans inside, including Lee Manbok, would have been able to escape the dungeon. But if that had happened, Lee Arin’s revenge wouldn’t have been completed, and more importantly, I would have gained nothing. I needed to ask Lee Manbok who had passed the soul core on to him. If he escaped the dungeon, that would have been impossible.

So I deliberately revealed my power as the “Destroyer of Worlds” and caused a system error; just like I did in the previous dungeon. The difference this time, however, was that not only Lee Manbok but all the other humans failed to escape the dungeon as well.

That was because I had revealed killing intent toward the other humans, causing the system to recognize me as the new boss monster of the dungeon.

The system has detected hostility from User “Jeong Daon”.

More precisely, I made it misunderstand that way.

“I told you, it was all just acting.”

And this is the part that makes the system angry, that I intentionally caused a system error for personal gain, or something along those lines. Still, I had a way to persuade it.

“But in the end, you got a pretty solid lead, didn’t you?”

After all, I had uncovered a clue about the “Enemy of Humanity”, a being that even the system couldn’t trace, only detect as a threat, who had likely provided both this bracelet and the method for creating soul cores.

“If it weren’t for me, Lee Manbok would’ve died without even opening his mouth, let alone leaving any clues.”

I looked down at the bracelet I’d obtained, taken from Lee Manbok’s arm, a finely crafted snake’s head, set with a green chrysoberyl. To find out when and from whom Lee Manbok had received this item, I first plunged him into a state of complete terror.

I planned to infiltrate the unconscious mind of someone gripped by fear and examine their memories one by one. But when I tried to access Lee Manbok’s memories, something unexpected happened. Lee Manbok, already on the verge of death, violently rejected the intrusion, vomiting blood from his seven orifices.

It wasn’t his own power; it was a restriction placed by someone else.

A vicious restriction.

I had expected that if that person had ever come into direct contact with Lee Manbok, they would have silenced him, but I hadn’t imagined they’d placed such a powerful restriction on his unconscious mind. A restriction so strong that merely trying to speak about that person would cause his mind to collapse.

“Well, considering they’re hiding even from the system, I suppose it makes sense.”

In any case, whether Lee Manbok’s mind shattered or not didn’t matter to me, and I still managed to extract a small clue.

“The Central Management Office.”

The moment those words were forced out, Lee Manbok’s mind completely collapsed, like a bomb detonating after an incorrect password was entered. It seemed something like an enormous trauma had been embedded deep within his subconscious, but it was destroyed without a trace—so completely that even I couldn’t tell what kind of magic it had been.

Just what exactly was that bastard doing in this world?

“Haa…” A sigh escaped me. “Well, one way or another, if I dig into the Central Management Office, something is bound to turn up.”

– The system requests User “Jeong Daon” to assist with the “SAVE THE WORLD” quest…

The system displayed yet another tiresome request, but I shut it off immediately. Telling me to save the world, just looking at it gives me chills.

“I’ve given you enough of a lead already. Leave saving the world to the hero.”

I’ll think about how to hunt that bastard down and kill him in my own way.

Time until dungeon escape becomes available: 00:00:00

In any case, it was time for me to return to reality.