The final boss, a colossal figure resembling a Moai statue, had initially kept its immense body hidden beneath the earth, with only its face visible, its eyeballs eerily rolling.
The moment I ventured closer, it surged from the ground as if it had been expecting my arrival. Its face, though far from small in isolation, appeared minuscule in comparison to the sheer enormity of its newly revealed form.
“Wow. It’s really big,” I commented briefly, immediately scaling onto Bisharp’s sturdy back.
My primary objective was to gauge the creature’s strength.
Fortunately, I had accumulated a considerable number of spirits by continuously vanquishing the golems that had relentlessly appeared on our path to this encounter.
The battle commenced with a furious clash between my summoned spirits and the gargantuan boss.
Hordes of golems, dwarfed by the final boss’s sheer size, surged forward, their stone chunks intertwining and striking the boss with fierce determination.
Each time the boss swung its massive arm, sweeping them aside, it was reassuring to witness them rapidly reassemble and charge back into the fray.
With the spirits engaging the boss, it was now our turn.
Sahin attacked the boss with his sword, Bisharp with his sharp claws, and I aimed to shatter its core with my spear.
Despite our combined efforts, unavoidable attacks gradually accumulated scratches on our bodies.
It was fortunate that I was perched on Bisharp, allowing me to dodge many blows; otherwise, my entire body would have been covered in far more significant wounds.
As scratches marred my body, the boss’s colossal form absorbed increasingly severe blows.
I could discern its tough, rock-like body progressively crumbling, cracking, and breaking apart, with pieces falling away.
“Graaaah!” The boss’s shriek was deafening, a guttural roar of agony and frustration.
Sensing its body breaking apart, the boss moved with sudden, desperate speed, as if in a final, brutal struggle for survival, mercilessly attacking the golems.
Sharp stones, fragments of its own body, flew outward, burrowing into the cracks and fissures of the rocks that formed the golems’ bodies.
A significant number of golems crumbled under the intensity of this assault, and the boss’s fierce gaze then locked onto Bisharp and me.
Bisharp’s body, too, bore various puncture and scratch wounds from the preceding onslaught.
The boss manifested sharp stone blades directly from its body and swung them, clearly intending to exploit those very wounds.
It was, without a doubt, a brutal battle.
The mere thought of what might have transpired had I been without my spirit-summoning abilities or Bisharp sent shivers down my spine.
Capitalizing on the boss’s gaze being momentarily fixed on us, Sahin swiftly moved, his agile movements allowing him to attack the boss’s leg.
Under the concentrated assault, the boss, with one knee driven into the ground, wildly swung its stone blade in a desperate attempt to fend us off.
While the boss was temporarily incapacitated, Bisharp unleashed a powerful blast of icy breath, freezing the monstrous creature solid in its vulnerable position.
The strategic decision to wait until the golems had inflicted substantial damage on the boss proved invaluable.
Had Bisharp breathed fire from the outset, even the golems that had become spirits would have been frozen, leaving us to confront the boss with only our inherent strength.
We almost certainly wouldn’t have been able to breach its core through the ice, and we would have been forced to endure an indefinite wait until its frozen form melted.
After the arduous struggle to finally defeat the boss, the familiar black smoke shimmered like a distant haze.
Moments later, a gigantic spirit burst forth from the boss’s crumbling body.
The sense of accomplishment was profoundly doubled because I had managed to capture it with considerable difficulty.
Perhaps because it was the very first spirit I had extracted after my possession, my joy felt amplified, a profound satisfaction washing over me.
“Your name is Stone,” I declared.
[Thank you, my Lord.]
Ah, this was the pure joy of extracting spirits!
Wearing a satisfied smile, I bent down and retrieved the item that had appeared at the spot where the boss had finally succumbed.
It was the formidable stone blade the boss had been wielding just moments before.
The blade’s inherent strength was undeniably on an entirely different level compared to ordinary swords or spears, suggesting it could prove to be incredibly useful.
As I carefully placed the item into my inventory, the surrounding scenery slowly began to shift, dissolving around me.
In an instant, I found myself standing before the tall rock where I had been positioned before entering the gate to the dungeon.
No one else had ventured through the gate, allowing me to successfully deal with the boss unhindered.
I had effectively prevented a potential dungeon break and was about to turn back, basking in a feeling of self-satisfaction and pride, when a familiar voice suddenly resonated nearby.
“Is it over there?”
It was Eunhasu!
And it wasn’t just her; several other individuals were approaching.
If I attempted to ascend on Bisharp’s back, I would undoubtedly be discovered.
Reacting swiftly, I immediately employed my shadow transformation skill, just as several figures emerged from among the trees.
I identified them one by one: Ban Eun-hyeol, Yeon Ha-yeon, Eunhasu, Do Yi-hyun, Baek Ji-woo, Cha Hyeon-seo, and James.
As I confirmed each familiar face, a trickle of cold sweat seemed to trace its way down my spine.
Only one thought screamed in my mind: ‘It would have been a disaster if I had been a little later!’
If it had taken me even a moment longer to defeat the boss, I would have been caught using my skills by this group.
And they were already desperate to locate the mysterious Rank 0 hunter after the last regular meeting.
Even if it proved difficult for them to immediately identify me just by witnessing me in combat, if fate were unkind, it was only a matter of time before I was apprehended.
“What? Why isn’t it here?”
A flustered Ban Eun-hyeol frantically fumbled with the rock where the gate had previously stood.
‘Oops!’
I hadn’t had the foresight or the time to collect the dungeon byproducts.
It only just occurred to me that I had only managed to snatch the spirits and a single item.
It would have been incredibly difficult to simply pretend it was the work of the elusive Phantom Thief Hunter.
“Is it the Phantom Thief Hunter?”
Yeon Ha-yeon inquired. In response, Ban Eun-hyeol checked something on his phone and replied, “No. There’s nothing in front of the guild.”
At this, the guild leaders, their expressions serious, began to systematically mention suspicious individuals, one by one.
“It could be Nada’s doing.”
“Oh? Nada! That’s a definite possibility, isn’t it?”
“You mean Nada thought it looked dangerous and closed it on her way through?”
Just then, Do Yi-hyun, who had remained silent throughout the discussion, spoke up.
“I think it’s an outsider from another dimension.”
Listening quietly from my concealed position, I noted that the list of suspects seemed to be narrowing down to me.
They wouldn’t, of course, consider Nada and the ‘outsider from another dimension’ to be the same person.
“It was definitely here when we came earlier, so it’s a plausible deduction considering it disappeared so quickly,” Ban Eun-hyeol remarked, continuing to touch the rock surface.
My eyes widened at his words.
‘He said he was here earlier?’
When on earth…?
He hadn’t seen me, had he?
My heart pounded with growing tension.
Every slight movement from Ban Eun-hyeol sent my nerves twitching.
Listening to the guild leaders converse, it became clear that the Dungeon Management System had sent a message to Ban Eun-hyeol.
After receiving it, Ban Eun-hyeol had come to inspect the gate, and upon seeing that the magic appeared somewhat stable, he had then headed to the association first.
‘Should I consider the Status Window saved me?’
I was unsure whether to feel grateful or not.
All I could manage was a hollow, internal laugh.
I continued to secretly observe the guild leaders, but then noticed that one of them was missing. I scanned the area far and wide, even from my perch on a tree a good distance away from the other guild leaders, but I couldn’t find him.
‘Where did Do Yi-hyun go?’
I was still searching for Do Yi-hyun, who had abruptly vanished, when a voice came from directly below me.
“It’s you, isn’t it?”
I looked down to see Do Yi-hyun appearing on a branch directly beneath where I was perched. I nearly shrieked in sheer surprise.
‘Did he just talk to me?’
No way. I was still perfectly hidden in the shadows.
“You’ve already been found out.”
At this, I thought, Ah, I should probably head home now. It’s almost dawn anyway.
“You’re the heretic. Nada, right?”
Crazy!
At the sudden sound of my name, I frantically leaped out and covered his mouth.
He obediently allowed his mouth to be covered, rolling his eyes as he looked at me.
Then, he crossed his index fingers to form an ‘X’ symbol.
It seemed to signify that he wouldn’t speak.
Slowly, he raised his hand and, with his large hand, gently removed mine.
For a fleeting moment, his beautiful, smiling eyes made me stare blankly at him.
But I quickly snapped back to reality and glared at him.
‘That guy was hiding himself with stealth, too.’
Since he was currently a higher rank than me, if he was determined to use stealth, there was absolutely no way I would have been able to sense him.
I distinctly remembered that he was usually shy and didn’t really converse with anyone other than his close friends.
My guard immediately shot up at his demeanor, which somehow felt entirely different from what I knew of him.
Perhaps sensing my wariness, he awkwardly rubbed his nose and said, “I just wanted to talk to you once. I was curious. That’s all.”
His innocent eyes, which truly seemed to hold no other intentions, softened my heart.
I sighed and sat down on the tree branch.
I watched him settle down beside me.
Do Yi-hyun seemed to have activated a soundproofing skill long ago, as the other guild leaders couldn’t hear our conversation.
I turned my head slightly to the side and asked, “What are you curious about?”
Of course, I couldn’t control my expression at all.
I lay blankly on my bed, my mind replaying the bizarre sequence of events.
‘Do Yi-hyun… noticed me all along?’
Blink, blink.
I blinked a few times, staring blankly at the ceiling.
The more I mulled it over, the more absurd the entire situation seemed, so I sprang up and clutched my head in my hands.
I had never for a moment imagined that someone would notice my presence even with shadow transformation, let alone realize that the concealed presence was actually me.
I should have expected it when my friends had praised Do Yi-hyun, mentioning his profession as an assassin and how remarkably cool he was. I simply never thought there would be someone who could sense presences so acutely and employ a stealth technique without me being aware of it.
“No, why did I have to be caught by someone who has so little information about me, of all people?!”
I clutched Bisharp, who was lying next to my pillow in his minimized form, and shouted softly, careful not to be overheard.
At my soft shout, Bisharp looked up at me with round eyes and tilted his head, a gesture of pure cuteness that always managed to make me feel a little better.
The wings on his plump, small body were so tiny that I often wondered if he could actually fly with them, but they grew to an appropriate size when he truly used them.
In his true, formidable form, the jet-black scales that protruded like thorns on his back were prominently visible, but when he was small like this, those thorn-like scales disappeared entirely.
His smooth scales, large round eyes, small nose, and soft mouth created an utterly adorable atmosphere.
To calm my racing mind, I hugged Bisharp close and flopped back onto the bed.
Bisharp, accustomed to being held in my arms whenever his body became small, didn’t struggle to get away and lay still in my embrace.
Bisharp’s true form was that of a colossal dragon, but he possessed the ability to transform into this small dragon form at will.
This was why I often kept him by my side like a pet, communicating with him, just as I was doing now.
When Bisharp’s body was small, he was roughly the size of a small dog.
If his true form presented an imposing and fierce-faced dragon with piercing, sharp eyes, now he looked like a small, cute baby dragon with a round face and large, innocent round eyes.
[Shall I eliminate him?]
As I closed my eyes and tried to calm my mind, a brutal question cut through the silence.
It was Sahin.
I slightly opened my eyes and saw Sahin glaring fiercely at Bisharp, who was comfortably nestled in my arms.
[Who? Him, or that guy from earlier?]
[Ahem, that man from earlier.]
I had shouted softly earlier because I was so frustrated, but I had spoken only so the spirits could understand, just in case my parents overheard.
Sahin watched me for a moment, then cleared his throat and mentioned Do Yi-hyun.
[No, it’s fine. I appreciate the thought, but eliminating someone like him would be a national loss.]
As I waved my hand, Sahin, accepting my decision without further argument, then inquired about our future plans.
I thought deeply, considering the implications of this new development, and finally replied, [First, we need to shut him up, and then we need to move even more carefully so we don’t get caught by others.]
I didn’t have a detailed plan firmly in mind.
I was always one to act first rather than meticulously plan, so this situation felt overwhelmingly chaotic.
I had only just begun to let my true personality emerge and breathe a little, allowing myself some freedom, but then came the Status Window, and now Do Yi-hyun…
I stroked Bisharp’s back gently and recalled the peculiar proposal Do Yi-hyun had made to me.