The silence flowing under the moonlight tickled both cheeks.

“What does that mean?”

Heart this and that, what courage made him utter such embarrassing words? He hadn’t even solved the problem at hand yet, nor organized his thoughts.

Regret immediately welled up. His heart became complicated. As messy as the wave traces left on the sand by traveling wind.

“Can I take that to mean you have feelings for me?”

Again, the scenery was the problem. Intoxicated by the atmosphere provided by the unfamiliar and beautiful landscape, he had blurted out nonsense. At least, that’s how Ryu Seo-ha judged it.

“No, it’s just, I literally meant I wanted to give you a gift.”

Biting his lower lip firmly with his teeth as if scolding the lips that had uttered unrefined words, he quickly moved to explain. To prevent his hasty words from being over-interpreted.

“But why?”

“Because I’ve received so much…”

“You gave it with the mindset of a debtor repaying a debt?”

“No, that’s not…”

“But you wanted to give a gift to Kwon Se-jeong without any reason?”

The more he spoke, the more tangled the situation became. To deny Choi Gang-hu’s cold questioning, he needed to acknowledge the fundamental part, but that wasn’t easy. His heartbeat became erratic.

“I simply knew she would need it, so…”

“Simply?”

“…I thought it would be of some small help.”

“And to me?”

“…”

“In the end, it was just familiar charity driven by kindness towards anyone.”

The muttering tinged with bitterness tangled the threads in his mind hopelessly. Kwon Se-jeong and Choi Gang-hu were different. Though he had liked them both from the start as a reader of the original work, his current feelings towards the two were completely different.

“Ha, what was I expecting?”

Choi Gang-hu let out a low, hollow laugh and slowly closed his eyes. His heart shook violently. Afraid he would let go of his hand like this, his fingers twitched.

“…It’s different.”

As if someone was choking him, his constricted vocal cords struggled to squeeze out a small sound. Choi Gang-hu, who had closed his eyes, opened them and met his gaze.

“It’s true that I have a compulsion to avoid incurring anyone’s hostility, but for you, Mr. Choi…”

His trembling eyelashes felt heavy, and he lowered his gaze. Unrelated to the survival methods of the weak, he simply wanted to see it. The sight of Choi Gang-hu being happy to receive a gift.

To Ryu Seo-ha, he was an absolutely necessary person, but surprisingly, he often forgot that desperation. Perhaps because of this, words and actions he wouldn’t have done if he had calculated everything as usual would naturally pop out.

“For me?”

When he couldn’t continue his next words, a voice gently urging him brushed the back of his ear. It was a tone that gave reassurance, as always.

“You act selfishly too, you know.”

“…You mean Ryu Seo-ha?”

He looked straight up at him, who asked back with a subtle expression.

“I’ve never once thought you were the same as others.”

And he declared firmly.

“You are a special person to me, Mr. Choi.”

He still wasn’t confident in examining his own emotions in detail. With life possibly ending in just 9 days. The fact that their meeting started as a relationship based on mutual need also weighed heavily on his heart.

“Someone who makes me happy when we’re together and lets me enjoy hidden scenery.”

He was afraid of opening his heart recklessly only to be miserably abandoned the moment their interests no longer aligned. So he couldn’t easily admit it. Knowing himself that once he acknowledged his feelings, he would never be able to let go.

“Do you enjoy the time you spend with me?”

Choi Gang-hu asked back with a strange expression Ryu Seo-ha had never seen before. As if he had heard a direct confession that Ryu Seo-ha was still avoiding.

“Yes. Enough to forget about tomorrow and focus only on this moment.”

The reason he had been able to take in the beautiful scenery while putting aside anxiety and depression was probably because that one person was there beside him to look at it together. Reliably, like a safe zone for his heart.

“…Even when I act foolish and childish?”

Perhaps ashamed of bombarding questions like a child comparing gift sizes, Choi Gang-hu’s earlobes could be seen slightly reddening as he roughly rubbed his face.

“I thought it looked fresh and cute.”

As soon as he smiled with his eyes while waving the hand he had been holding, a broad embrace crashed over him. The arm tightly squeezing his waist gave a strange sense of stability.

“I should get treatment from Ryu Seo-ha too.”

“Treatment?”

Choi Gang-hu’s long sigh tickled the nape of his neck.

“I think I have bipolar disorder.”

Haha, Ryu Seo-ha laughed out loud and shook his head.

“I can give you counseling anytime.”

“Anytime?”

“When Mr. Choi…”

Ryu Seo-ha stopped mid-sentence and stepped out of the broad embrace that had been shielding the entire world. It was because he felt vibrations from below his feet, koo-goo-goo.

The first thing that caught his eye was the sight of a waist-high sand dune that had just been protruding now being hollowed out.

The blood traces along the sand waves, the corpse of an overturned night centipede showing its belly, and the fallen sand claw scorpion confirmed that there had been an unnoticed monster attack.

“How about play therapy?”

The one who had changed the genre of the scenery in an instant suggested with a smile. While lightly grabbing the human-sized claw of the sand claw scorpion.

“I heard ATV tours are a must for desert tourism.”

A dreamlike blue light pressed down on the sand claw scorpion’s head. It was exactly as described in the original work when he utilized psychic skills.

“Surely not…”

“Do you like riding amusement park rides?”

The quickly brainwashed monster obediently lay prone on the ground. As if saying to freely ride on its back.

“…I’ve never tried one.”

You’d have to have been to an amusement park to know likes and dislikes. And riding monsters is closer to sandboarding than a bike tour, isn’t it?

“Let’s try it together.”

He stared down at the outstretched hand again. It wouldn’t be bad to try it once. It would be a precious piece of memory to adorn what might be the first and last overseas trip of his life.

❖ ❖ ❖

The amusement ride experience using desert monsters was more fun than expected. Enough to realize “I surprisingly like thrilling activities.”

He laughed out loud the whole time, forgetting even the thought that hunters with superhuman senses might hear from the quarters. Laughing so hard he could barely breathe.

It was the first time in both his previous life where he never even rode a slide, and his current life where he had grown accustomed to quietly suppressing himself.

-Was it fun?

-Yes, very much.

-Then let’s come play again next time.

But Choi Gang-hu’s mention of reopening the unique amusement park could only be passed over with an ambiguous smile instead of a positive confirmation.

“Defense team roll call complete.”

It took about 3 hours until dawn. Even considering that the day cycle in dungeons is usually faster than Earth’s, it was a very short night.

“Attack team formation complete.”

Some hunters would stay behind to guard the perimeter for civilian protection, while the majority of hunters would set out to eliminate the terrorists.

No particular tension could be seen in them as they moved in formation according to nationality and type. Understandably so. They probably believed that if hundreds of high-grade, high-level hunters rushed in at once, the situation would be resolved before the opponents could even try any tricks.

‘…I have a bad feeling.’

On the other hand, Ryu Seo-ha had no choice but to tighten the strings of tension again. It was because there had been something bothering him since the beginning of the incident.

The bull-masked terrorists had been mentioned in passing in the original work too. Through foreign news articles, in relation to Gangseong Group’s European branch.

While reading, he had wondered if it might be foreshadowing related to the Church. It was just a guess based on context, and since it wasn’t dealt with importantly in the end and just passed by, he had dismissed it as a red herring.

“Huh? What’s that?”

Like then, he hoped it was just an overinterpretation.

“Yeah. What the hell are those crazy bastards doing?”

“What? What is it? I can’t see.”

“Hmm… The masked guys are strung up on straight poles?”

When search-type hunters among those crossing the desert for the extermination operation voiced the strange scene unfolding beyond the sand dunes,

‘Sacrificial ritual!’

Only Ryu Seo-ha sensed the crisis and immediately took a combat stance.

“We have to stop them! Right now!”

He had no choice but to issue a warning, putting aside thoughts of looking strange. Stopping what they were trying to do was the top priority.

“Huh? Why are you suddenly…”

Whoosh─!

Before the hunter could finish asking back, one of the sand dunes obstructing the view was swept away by a small tornado.

Choi Gang-hu, who had leveled the sand dune with a light gesture, ignored the surprised gazes and floated the Ruyi Sword in the air.

“Damn it, everyone prepare for battle!”

The disappearance of the cover concealing them meant their approach was also exposed to all. The element of surprise was lost.

Instead of reprimanding Choi Gang-hu for his sudden individual action, the temporary leader hunter loudly declared the start of combat.

Massive firepower attack skills poured down in droves. Onto the large barrier right next to where the sand dunes had been.

Crack! After the barrier, spread firmly thanks to numerous S-grade items, shattered, Choi Gang-hu, who had been at the forefront, turned around.

“What…”

With an expressionless face, he made an incomprehensible gesture towards his allies. A small breeze arose, sweeping past everyone lightly.

Then the hunters collapsed as if they were puppets with cut strings, thud, thud. Without exception, even S-rank hunters, all of them.