“Your expression looks really bad. Do you hate it that much?”
“There’s nothing to like about it.”
I thought I’d at least be able to rest today.
In the passenger seat beside Han Jaeyeong, who was humming to themself as they drove, I crossed my arms and watched the road ahead. Honestly, I wanted to sit in the back seat, but they’d brought some insane sports car I’d never even heard of, so the passenger seat was my only option.
“So where exactly is this Truelight Guild?”
“They have branches all over the place, but their largest headquarters in the metropolitan area is in Anyang, southern Gyeonggi. They hold regular gatherings for believers there.”
Right. At the moment, Han Jaeyeong and I were heading toward one of the Truelight Guild’s regional headquarters. Han Jaeyeong and Yu Hanul seemed to think that the enemy currently targeting me was someone from a cult. Apparently, they’d received a tip that the smoke item used during the Dungeon Break had been obtained by the Truelight Guild. What’s more, when they looked into the identity of the man who’d sacrificed his life to trigger the first Dungeon Break, it turned out he’d been briefly affiliated with that very guild. Honestly, it all fit together almost too neatly.
“It feels off. You really catch the trail this fast? It’s not a trap?”
“In the second Dungeon Break, there weren’t enough traces left to even identify anyone, so maybe the variable was that the first victim’s body—the terrorist’s—was recovered. The forensic team did a thorough job, too.” Han Jaeyeong added, “And for something this psychotic, wouldn’t it be impossible unless it was a cult?”
That was true enough.
To the point of ordering people to sacrifice their lives, you’d need at least a heretical sect.
For any human, their own life is the most precious thing, so if someone gives it up for some purpose, it can only be called madness. And the belief that some absolute being will absolve their sins and reward them only fuels that madness. It really was a convenient story. No matter what you did, you’d be rewarded as long as you offered your life.
Then what about me, who gave my life to the hero’s sword in my past life? Shouldn’t I get a reward too? Was it because my opponent wasn’t an absolute being that I got nothing?
“Gya!” Leo, who was sitting on my lap, clicked his tongue. “Boring.”
I wasn’t committing blasphemy for your entertainment. And besides, I was entertained.
“But aren’t you scared? You’re trusting that familiar?”
“Familiar? Ah… conceptually, it’s pretty similar.”
What was interesting was that the “magic” I remembered from my past life wasn’t all that different from the magic understood in this life. There were some differences in terminology and concepts, but not much more than that. Considering that humanity’s collective mental entity, the system, had developed magic as a weapon to deal with external threats, it was fascinating. Maybe it meant that humans, no matter the world or environment, always arrive at the same conclusions.
Pressing down on Leo’s paw, I asked, “What exactly do I have to be scared of?”
“If you say you’re going to a cult’s headquarters, even veteran Hunters would be on edge. But you don’t seem nervous at all, Miss Daon.”
“You’re coming, and Yu Hanul is too. Is there really anything to worry about?”
Han Jaeyeong smiled faintly. “Hm, I didn’t realize I was trusted that much.”
Calling it trust isn’t quite right. If the cultists try to attack me, I’m planning to use the two of them as meat shields and run. They’re both S-rank Hunters, so they’re sturdy enough to buy me time.
“More importantly, last time we were completely helpless. Are you sure the countermeasures are really in place this time?”
Honestly, if it hadn’t been for that smoke in the last dungeon, Yu Hanul and Han Jaeyeong could’ve responded immediately.
“Of course. We’re not that sloppy.” As they said that, Han Jaeyeong clicked their tongue in irritation. “It’s just that we never anticipated something like that item entering the country in the first place.”
At this point, it was nothing more than a pointless excuse.
Han Jaeyeong waved their free hand through the air, then pulled out two unfamiliar items and handed them to me. “Here. You need to put both of these on. One for your nose, one for your mouth.” One was small enough to fit inside the nose, and the other looked like a transparent orthodontic retainer. Even at a glance, they looked uncomfortable… I stared at them silently, clearly wondering why I had to wear these, and Han Jaeyeong added, “They’re air-purification items. They filter out particles above a certain size. They were originally developed to block fine dust, but I thought they’d be perfect.”
“…I really have to wear these?”
“If you just block the respiratory system, this is the most efficient way. It uses very little mana, too.”
For something they were so confident about, it didn’t seem like a very perfect solution. I looked at the items, which seemed rather shoddy. Then again, the smoke item capable of subduing Hunters hadn’t been around that long either, so maybe expecting a flawless countermeasure was unreasonable.
Perhaps noticing my gaze, Han Jaeyeong cleared their throat. “Something about the way you’re looking at me feels suspicious. Is it just my imagination?”
“It’s real.”
“Hm, that’s a blow to my pride. Should I hope for a chance to restore my wounded pride?”
“Are you saying you want to fight a cult?”
“It wouldn’t be bad. We’ve got a long history, after all.” Han Jaeyeong fell silent for a moment, as if reminiscing, then spoke again. “I may not look it, but I’m actually pretty old. People don’t notice because my skin’s good and I look young.”
“You do look it. And?”
“…The Truelight Guild—no, the Truelight Sect—is a cult with quite a long history. It existed even before dungeons and monsters appeared. Back then, they claimed that a great catastrophe would befall Earth even without monsters, and that the only way to stop it was to follow the leader’s teachings. If that’s what they were like when there were no monsters, imagine how they were once a real crisis actually arrived.”
What came after wasn’t hard to imagine. Even in what seems like a peaceful daily life, everyone is really going through their own personal hells. It isn’t hard to imagine how alluring religion can feel to people who’ve been through hardship. And then, on top of that, monsters straight out of scripture actually appeared.
“So they raked in money and followers.”
“Yes, exactly. Hunt monsters in accordance with God’s will and receive rewards. This hell was practically the stage they’d been waiting for.”
People had to face monsters using unfamiliar new weapons, swords and magic, just to survive. Even now, when things are somewhat systematized, a single Dungeon Break can spiral out of control. It’s not hard to imagine how things were in the early days, when dungeons first appeared.
“We’ve entered a new age of myth. That’s the opening line of one of the leader’s famous speeches.”
An age of myth. An age when heroes chosen by the gods slew monsters and earned fame. An age when death became glory, and that glory turned into immortality, becoming constellations in the sky. It was exactly the sort of thing a cult would say.
“That’s why the Truelight Guild’s dungeon-clearing success rate is absurdly high. Their members believe they’re chosen heroes.”
“From a national standpoint, isn’t that a good thing?”
“And they also have the highest fatality rate. They willingly throw themselves into death to become glorious stars.” Han Jaeyeong stopped the car. “All right. Let’s go—to the headquarters of the anachronists.”
We were led inside a building that, from the outside, looked like a corporate training center. There, we encountered Yu Hanul, who had arrived ahead of us.
He greeted me first, “Hi, Daon.”
Was it just my imagination, or did his attitude seem strangely stiff? After a few days of recovery, had he started to feel embarrassed about what he’d done back then?
Either way, Yu Hanul’s demeanor wasn’t particularly important in the current situation.
“Welcome! Wow, Hunters Yu Hanul and Han Jaeyeong to our church, and on top of that…”
This was the main event. The executive who came rushing over at the appearance of S-rank Hunters had eyes that sparkled.
“...even the hottest Hunter lately, Hunter Jeong Daon, has come to visit!”
If I truly were their target, it was like a delectable prey had rolled straight into their mouth. Seeing them rub their hands together in welcome made me feel a bit uncomfortable… but then again, it was true that I was currently the hottest topic in South Korea, so this alone didn’t prove anything yet.
“You’ve come at just the right time. Now, please, have something to drink. Tea? Coffee?”
That pleasant, smiling face was impressive. If someone said a person with a face like that was a cultist, who would believe it?
“We didn’t come here to leisurely drink tea.”
Han Jaeyeong’s smiling face was impressive too. In terms of being infuriating, they’d probably rank first. They’d said they hated cults, and it didn’t seem like a lie, jumping straight to the point like this.
Yu Hanul held out a photograph toward the executive, who had frozen mid-smile at the blunt approach. “Do you recognize the person in this photo?”
I recognized the man in the photo, and it made my stomach churn a little. The man in the picture had died, shattered to pieces, the moment he entered the supermarket where I worked.
Meanwhile, the executive, after scanning the photo, made a troubled expression.
“No. Is this someone I should know?”
“Yes. We believe he worked for this Truelight Guild.”
“Ah, my apologies. Our church, no, our guild, has so many Hunters affiliated with it. I don’t think he’s someone whose face I recognize…”
“According to the government system, he was an F-rank Hunter.”
Ah. The executive nodded, seeming to understand.
“In that case, it would indeed be hard to know him. In southern Gyeonggi alone, we have nearly a thousand members. And if he was F-rank, he would have been handling miscellaneous tasks, so…”
So someone of their position wouldn’t know him.
Han Jaeyeong nodded. “Still, please look into it.”
“Well, all right. I’ll see if there were any acquaintances who knew him.” With that, the executive stood up from their seat. “Then, if you don’t mind, would you like to read this while you wait?”
What the executive handed over was a promotional pamphlet with the name Truelight Sect printed across it in huge letters.
After the executive left the room, I saw Yu Hanul and Han Jaeyeong exchange looks. They were probably thinking the same thing I was.
They already know he’s dead.
The identity of the man suspected of causing the Dungeon Break still hadn’t been reported in the news. And since we hadn’t explained our business when we arrived, this must have been a sudden line of questioning, yet the executive’s attitude toward us was remarkably calm. Almost as if they were prepared. What’s more, they’d referred to acquaintances who had “known” him. They’d unconsciously used the past tense.
With three S-rank Hunters present, it was certainly an environment ripe for pressure.
Up until now, the evidence had fit together so neatly that it felt unsettling, like it might be a trap—but maybe we’d unexpectedly hit the jackpot instead.
“Still, I don’t think that executive will give us any genuinely useful information. Especially if they have something to hide.”
“You can’t fill your stomach with the first spoonful. Either way, there’s definitely something here, so let’s dig deeper.”
“How do you plan to move?”
“If they’re really after you, Daon, they’ll try to keep us here. For now, let’s wait. Is that okay?”
“Yeah.”
At the very least, there was clearly something off about this guild. I glanced over at Yu Hanul.
Would you like to participate in the quest “SAVE THE WORLD”?
The system message was still chiming away, as annoying as ever. I still had no desire to take part in that quest, but there was one thing I wanted to confirm.
“I needed some time anyway. I let Leo loose.”
“Leo?”
“My familiar.”
From the start, I hadn’t expected to get any solid information directly from the executive. It would be ridiculous to expect a cultist to freely spill information to outsiders.
“I released him the moment we got out in the parking lot.”
Looking at the building’s exterior, the drainage pipes were exposed, making it perfect for wild animals to come and go, so Leo had already climbed the pipes and entered the inner courtyard.
“Let’s wait and see what kind of information a stray cat brings back.”
“Not a stray cat!” Leo protested, having heard my words through our soul link.