Chapter 46
The first thing Cha Si-hyeon saw after escaping the faction space was.
“Why are these things even here?”
Clones.
Despite clearly having left the faction area, about five clones were wandering the corridor. They looked around and, upon spotting Lim Yuchan and Cha Si-hyeon, rushed towards them as if they’d found prey.
[Skill, ‘Sprint (D)’ is used!]
[Movement speed greatly increases!]
Whoosh! In the blink of an eye, Cha Si-hyeon charged forward and cleanly swung his knife five times. As Lim Yuchan took a step following Cha Si-hyeon, the five clones fell backward.
“Seems like these are clones that the lower-rank factions couldn’t handle.”
Lim Yuchan, who calmly approached Cha Si-hyeon’s side, looked around the intersection and asked.
“Which way should we go?”
“Let’s start with the right.”
The first dungeon they were in before, [Forgotten Forest], was shaped like nature as its name suggested, so it was surprisingly easy to remember the path they’d taken. But here, with nothing but identical stone walls, finding the way was quite difficult.
They decided to keep turning right and moved on.
With every corridor they walked, clones presumed to be those undefeated by other factions would pop up, and no matter how many times they changed direction, they only encountered identical-looking clones.
‘Damn, I think I’ll get sick of seeing cloth scraps soon.’
Cha Si-hyeon made a nauseated expression looking at a clone visible through the other wall.
While other clones were at least tattered, this one was in such a pristine state that it was hard to tell if it was a monster or someone on vacation. It probably hadn’t fought yet.
“What should we do? Want to split up?”
Lim Yuchan, feeling it was hopeless, asked first. Cha Si-hyeon finally held his forehead.
“Hah… I guess that might be better.”
It’s taking much longer than expected. How can everything look so identical?
‘If only something was even slightly different… Huh?’
Suddenly, the image of the neat doll they’d just seen flashed through Cha Si-hyeon’s mind. As he paused, Lim Yuchan turned back as if wondering if there was a problem.
Cha Si-hyeon removed his hand from his forehead, which he’d been holding as if frustrated, and finally spoke.
“That one we saw earlier seemed strange.”
“What about it?”
“The thread parts weren’t sloppy.”
Lim Yuchan furrowed his brow.
“What?”
So…
“It didn’t look like something that was made.”
💎
The place I headed straight to, riding Mungchi, was in front of the 2nd-rank faction.
“I’m coming here on my own feet again.”
If Lim Yuchan knew I’d come here, and alone at that, he’d surely say I was crazy.
Well, anyone would say you’re crazy if the person who was kidnapped voluntarily returns to the place they were kidnapped from.
First, I got off Mungchi’s back and crouched down. Looking at Mungchi, now at eye level with me, I asked.
“Mungchi, you know the 5th-rank faction leader, right?”
Mungchi nodded up and down. It seems he remembered Shin Shawol from that one time we all gathered before.
“Bring that person here.”
I’d like to go myself, but there’s no time.
[DUNGEON GUIDE] 00:36:45 until the end of ‘Protect Faction from External Intruders – Stage 1’
After quickly checking the system, I looked back at Mungchi and said.
“Please. I’ll see you later.”
Mungchi lifted his head, gently bumped his black nose against my palm, and then turned around. As I watched Mungchi quickly moving away, I too turned around.
‘Being a sharp person, I guess I don’t need to worry too much.’
Thinking that, as I stepped into the faction, a familiar figure appeared on the opposite side as if waiting.
“As expected, you’ve come in person.”
It was Kim Ha-neul, the 2nd-rank faction leader.
“And fearlessly alone, at that.”
As he sneered, I leisurely smiled back.
“Because someone like you is easy to handle even alone.”
Thud. The faction’s entrance closed behind me.
💎
“We estimate there are about 200 clones that have invaded our side.”
Shin Shawol sat quietly in her chair, listening to Kim Chan-woo, his faction member and closest advisor, as he briefed her.
“More factions than expected have fallen to the clones, so we’ve blocked all entrances within the faction.”
“Keep them blocked until this round ends.”
“Yes, understood.”
“What’s the current situation within the faction?”
“It’s progressing rather smoothly, and we should be able to handle everything soon. Among the top-rank factions, we’re probably the most—”
Thud. That’s when it happened. The faction member’s report was interrupted as Shawol’s door shook.
“What’s that? Have the clones come this far?”
“What? No, that can’t be. I’m sure we had dealt with almost all of them before I came…”
Thud, thud, thud, thud!
Chan-woo, who had been staring blankly at the shaking door, hastily drew the gun at his waist and stepped forward.
Just as he opened the door, ready to shoot…
“Uh… Huh?!”
Chan-woo stumbled backward and let out a bewildered exclamation.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
Shawol immediately stood up at his confused reaction. And then.
“Woof!”
“…Woof?”
A loud bark filled the room. What Shawol saw was none other than…
“A wolf?”
It was a large white wolf.
Long legs, fluffy fur, a visibly sturdy body, and a blue mark on its forehead.
It walked past the stunned Chan-woo towards Shawol.
“Faction leader, it’s dangerous…!”
“No, it’s fine.”
Shawol raised her hand towards the urgently shouting Chan-woo and slowly crouched down.
“What?”
“I know this one.”
The wolf walked steadily forward and stopped in front of Shawol. She looked at the blue markings split into two parts above its forehead and below its eyes, and asked,
“You’re that C-rank’s monster, aren’t you?”
💎
I had seen Kim Ha-neul’s skill with ‘Peek (S)’ before, but actually fighting him made me understand it better.
[Skill, ‘Downward Strike (B)’ is used!]
It was very simple.
‘Ugh…’
I blocked the downward striking blade with my sword held horizontally.
It was so simple that I could block it without any skills, but it was powerful enough that I could barely withstand an A-rank skill with my SSS-rank sword.
I gritted my teeth against the tremendous force that seemed about to split my sword in half.
‘It’s hard to win with brute force.’
It was clear that his near-defeat by me last time was either because he underestimated me or deliberately took hits.
[Skill, ‘Final Blow (A)’ is used!]
Then, he used skills consecutively.
“Wait—!”
Bang!
I hurriedly blocked with my sword, but the great force sent me tumbling.
‘This is bad.’
I frowned and clutched my throbbing arm. Not only had I been thrown, but it seemed I had twisted my arm wrong. Just as I reached out to grab my fallen sword. Thwack!
“Without your comrades, what can someone like you do?”
“Ugh!”
He stomped on my hand as it reached for the sword. As I grimaced, he chuckled.
“I’ll admit, you’re tenacious. But that alone won’t be enough to survive here.”
“……”
“Just a C-rank, not knowing your place.”
I smirked at his added comment.
“You seem to be having quite a hard time with just one C-rank.”
“Why you—!”
Just as he angrily lifted his foot to stomp on my hand again.
“Faction leader!”
A man who seemed to be a faction member shouted from the adjacent corridor.
“More clones are coming in through our back door!”
“What?”
“We need to evacuate quickly! There are too many clones…”
“I thought we sent them all…”
At that moment, Kim Ha-neul paused. He, too, had finally seen it.
“Damn it! Why are there so many…?!”
The horde of approaching clones.
Without further thought, I immediately turned and ran in the opposite direction. I didn’t know why there were so many, but at a glance, it seemed similar to the number that had invaded our faction.
“Run!”
At Kim Ha-neul’s belated shout, the faction members behind him started running.
Several members of the 2nd-rank faction were mercilessly crushed and killed by the clones. Leaving that behind, I ran with Kim Ha-neul and a few faction members, arriving at the central hall located on the lower floor. As soon as we closed the two massive doors of the central hall, the sound of the swarming clones’ footsteps faded.
And as we turned our heads.
“W-wait a minute! There’s one more here—!”
A single clone was staring at us from the opposite entrance of the central hall.
“Hey! What are you all doing?! It’s just one, kill it quickly!”
Kim Ha-neul shouted at the hesitating faction members. True, it was just one. But why… is there only one?
‘Setting aside the question of how long it’s been here, I’ve never seen a clone alone before.’
The clones always moved in swarms. Unlike the others that always moved in groups of at least two, this one was alone.
Suddenly, an ominous thought crossed my mind.
“No way…”
Before I could complete my thought, it unexpectedly wrapped the needle stuck in its round doll-like hand. Threads appeared from thin air, mixing with the needle, and then it threw three lumps on the floor.
These rapidly grew in size and then…
“C-clones?!”
It created clones. In this sudden encounter with the boss, I muttered quietly.
“…When we were looking for it, it was nowhere to be seen, so why does it appear here of all places?”
Indeed, this was the final boss of this round.
💎
Thank you for reading! ♡
